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GONGORISM 


AND THE GOLDEN AGE © 


By ELISHA K. KANE 


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GONGORISM 


AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


The University of North Carolina Press 
Chapel Hill, N.C. 


Oxford University Press 
London 


Maruzen-Kabushiki-K aisha 
Tokyo 


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moti 


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Pietsch a 


tuto Don Lysis 
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“ Moa. (stade el metalvinia rn mre 

 Bonule thio: el intento : 


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From the Lecciones solemnes of D. J. Pellicer de Salas y Tovar Madrid, 1630 


DON LUIS DE GONGORA Y ARGOTE 


GONGORISM 
AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


4 STUDY OF EXUBERANCE AND 
UNRESTRAINT IN THE ARTS 


By ELISHA K. KANE 


WITH DECORATIONS BY THE AUTHOR 


CHAPEL HILL MCMXXVIII 
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS 


COPYRIGHT, 19: 
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH 


PREFACE 


The present study constitutes a complete revision 
and amplification of an earlier thesis, Gongorism and 
the Artistic Culture of the Golden Age, submitted in 
1926, so the formula runs, “‘to the Division of Modern 
Languages of Harvard University in partial fulfill- 
ment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of 
Philosophy.” Naturally, the writer himself has always 
been very firmly intrenched in the conviction that his 
work contained matter of peculiar significance to the 
culture of the human race. Finding, therefore, among 
his associates others who professed, through guile or 
weakness, a similar interest in his discoveries, he has 
allowed himself to be seduced into rewriting his thesis 
in order to secure, without the scandal of populariz- 
ing, at least a wider audience than the professionally 
erudite. 

To do this he has simplified much of the compli- 
cated machinery invariably found in works of doctoral 
eminence, at the same time not sacrificing what peda- 
gogues are pleased to term scholarship. Hence this new 
1928 model of gongorism surpasses the old 1926 model 
in readability, speed, compactness, endurance, and 
price. Footnotes have been largely eliminated, refer- 
ences being enclosed within the body of the text. 
Translations, moreover, have been provided for the 
convenience of those who may prefer to see their Span- 

[ ix ] 


x PREFACE 


ish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Provengal, Latin, and 
Greek appropriately Englished. In this connection it 
should be observed that faithful renderings have been 
made whenever a passage owes its importance to lin- 
guistic peculiarities, but when plays upon words and 
other kindred witticisms exist which defy literal equiva- 
lents, the writer has resorted to paraphrases, attempting 
to preserve, often in English verse, the essential spirit 
of the original. A few verses have been left untouched 
either because their grotesqueries are untranslatable or 
because their meaning is such that we, with a pardon- 
able distaste for the obscene, should not care to set 
them before the discriminating reader. 

In regard to the editions of Gongora’s poetry, we 
have used that edited by Foulché-Delbose and pub- 
lished by the Hispanic Society of America in 1921 as 
our critical text. In excerpts from this work we have 
preserved spelling, punctuation, but have not admitted 
its eccentric accentuations. Passages from this edition 
consequently will appear with no accents. With few ex- 
ceptions, we have accepted dates and when of especial 
significance they are enclosed in parentheses at the end of 
passages. In parentheses, too, are to be found the num- 
bers given by Foulché-Delbose to particular poems. 
These we include only when the excerpt is brief, as for 
example a sonnet or décima, longer and well known 
poems being noted by title, followed by the numerical 
designation of lines. Passages from the work of other 


PREFACE x1 


authors are preserved with the spelling, accents, and 
punctuation of the book from which taken. Here, unless 
necessary, no note is made of the edition. 

We also wish to acknowledge our indebtedness to 
the writings of Artigas, Alonso, Buceta, Cafiete, Reyes, 
Thomas, and other eminent scholars who have made 
prominent contributions to the question of gongorism. 
In the domain of music too we wish above all to men- 
tion Collet; in sculpture, Post and Orueta; and in 
painting, Cossio and Meyer. Obviously this brief list 
does not cover the names of all critics from whose 
works we have drawn, but in so restricted a Panthéon 
as this preface, it is impossible to provide shrines and 
burn incense to every luminary. We shall therefore, 
with Athenian tact, set apart one special altar and 
dedicate it to the Unknown Critic. Thus, if there be any 
unmentioned arbiter who feels that we have made use 
of his opus without due acknowledgment, let him re- 
gard that particular holy of holies as his very own. 

The pleasantest moment of my task is that which I 
now find before me for thanking the various persons 
who have helped me in this work. To Professor Her- 
nandez of Oklahoma University I tender my gratitude 
for aid in translation, and to my former instructors at 
Harvard, Professors Grandgent, Post, and Ford, I can 
indeed return no adequate thanks for generous encour- 
agement and valuable suggestions. To the staff of the 
University Press—somehow I cannot escape the feeling 


X11 PREFACE 


that I am writing a will and must presently run short 
of adjectives—I offer acknowledgment for their effi- 
cient aid in performing the many mute, inglorious de- 
tails connected with the cabalistics of printing. There 
is still one to whom I feel particularly grateful, and to 
whom I may truthfully pay the rather dubious compli- 
ment of saying that without his constant and cheerful 
help this work would never have been written. Pro- 
fessor Leavitt, my colleague and—remarkable exception 
in academic circles—at the same time my friend, has 
borne without flinching the onus of assisting me to set 
in order the muddle of gongorism, the deciphering of ill- 
typed manuscript, and the laborious reading of proofs. 
Where I have succeeded it has been largely because of 
his help; where I have failed I feel, and with increas- 
ing conviction, that it has been for not always heeding 
his kindly and sensible advice. 

Chapel Hill, 

January, 1928. 


CONTENTS 


Preface . 
List of Illustrations . 


Introduction . 


. The Meaning of Gongorism . 
ene Extent of Gongorism 

. Gongorism in Géngora 

. The Ancestors of Gongorism 


. Some Explanations of the 


Eccentric Style 


. Meretricious Verse in Other Literatures . 


. The Fantastic Style in Music 


Architecture and Extravagance 


The Grotesque in Sculpture . 


. Painting as a Field for Phantasy . 


. Conclusion 


Notes 


Index 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Frontispiece 


. Juan Budo, Musical Rebus 
. In Ascensione Domini 


. In Ascensione Domini 


In Ascensione Domini 


In Ascensione Domini 


. The Casa Zaporta 

. High Altar, Cloister at San Martin Pinario 

. High Altar, El Transparente 

. Alonso Berruguete, The Sacrifice of Isaac by 


Abraham 


Alonso Berruguete, Saint Jerome 


. Juan de Juni, The Descent from the Cross 
. Montanes, Christ 

. Alonso Villabrille, The Head of Saint Paul 
eesaint Peter 

. Luis de Morales, Pieta 

. El Greco, Toledo 

. A. El Greco, Saint Martin 


B. El Greco, The Resurrection 


. El Greco, Saint Sebastian 


XVI 


XIX. 
XX. 
XXI. 
XXII. 
XXII. 
XXIV. 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
El Greco, The Nativity 
El Greco, The Laocoon 
El Greco, The Vision of the Apocalypse 
Francisco de Goya, Disparates 
Francisco de Goya, Caprichos 


Francisco de Goya, Saturn Devouring His 
Children 


GONGORISM 


AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


f 


I. INTRODUCTION 


? sity cyte, att, (ale wl. uy 


ES EN ES ES “CS ES SEN SEN SEX 
EN HAVE Often marked the coincidence of 
periods of brilliant artistic growth with the 
various wars and ebulliences which seem to 
be the inevitable growing pains in the de- 
velopment of great nations. Thus the sudden 
florescence of letters in the eighth century during the 
welding of an empire by Charlemagne, the astonishing 
beauty of architecture and poetry in the twelfth at the 
time of the crusades, the unsurpassed magnificence of all 
arts in the sixteenth and seventeenth while Europe was 
engaged in a struggle for a new world—these and other 
parallels do seem to establish a sort of vague relation- 
ship between the sword and pen, to say nothing of the 
brush, the chisel, the chord, and the mason’s square. 
With the unproved but fascinating possibility of such 
concurrences, we can easily understand how prophets 
who were able to interpret the grisliest bloodshed in 
history as a crusade to make the world safe for democ- 
racy, might also find it latent in their seerships to give 


[3] 


4 INTRODUCTION 


vent to inspiring predictions anent a new renaissance 
of art which, Phoenix-like, certainly possessed a quan- 
tity of fire and ashes from which to rise. 

If strangeness of art be any proof of excellence, and 
unrestraint a guarantee of strength, then without a 
doubt, if chronology be not too harshly scrutinized, 
the two decades culminating in the past war have given 
birth to a new era in art. From poetry, music, archi- 
tecture, sculpture, and painting have arisen creations 
so astonishing that there are those on one hand ready 
to declare that the artistic millennium must verily be at 
hand, while others on the contrary are equally positive 
in denouncing the new art as if it were all the handi- 
work of some esthetical Anti-Christ. 

Free verse has existed long enough for us to be per- 
suaded almost that prose can be miraculously trans- 
formed into poetry simply by writing it in shorter lines, 
especially when the vers-librists affirm that it acquires, 
in the metamorphosis, certain subtle and delicate 
rhythms. Yet a new enemy has appeared, under the 
banner of imagism, casting into this verse figures of 
speech so grotesque and revolting that we at times feel 
justified in believing that instead of witnessing an 
artistical millennium, we are in the midst of the atroci- 
ties of a poetical Armageddon. J. A. Prufrock, for 
example, uses the simile, “He laughed like an irre- 
sponsible foetus” and elsewhere describes a quiet even- 
ing as “spread out against the sky line like a patient 
etherized upon a table.’’ Maxwell Bodenheim, the gifted 


INTRODUCTION 5 


author who hears “rubies of sound” and “dahlia mur- 
murs,” speaks feelingly of stars as “icily clustered nuts 
dotting trees of solitude” and soars into the following 
verses : 

Trees probing the shrilly sensitive sunset 


Like little, laced nightmares leaning 
Upon a scarlet breast. 


Poems, too, there are, written in fanciful shapes and in 
many languages at once, but it takes E. E. Cummings 
to tell us that we must expect some occultly symbolical 
and subjective beauty in his stanza: 


a: crimbflitteringish is arefloatsis ingfallall! mil, shy 
milbrightlions 
my (hurl flicker handful 
in) dodging are shybrigHteyes is crum bs (111) 
if, ey E. 


Nor must it be imagined that the above productions 
are isolated. It is possible to multiply almost indefinitely 
the names of perpetrators of equally fantastic lyrics: 
Conrad Aiken, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Alfred 
Kreymborg, Donald Evans, Allen Norton, Hilda Doo- 
little, Benjamin de Casseres, and countless others re- 
membered only by the worshippers of the bedlam muse. 
Nor is this sort of verse even confined to America, for 
the “mirrorists” or Ultraistas of Spain, printing their 
verses with reflections as if seen against a mirror, the 
Marinettian futurists of Italy with their telescoping 
of lines, crossing and printing of all sizes of type, and 


6 INTRODUCTION 


the followers of Blummer in Germany, writing not with 
words but in meaningless sounds supposed to be en- 
dowed with spiritually symbolical meanings—all these 
are much more bizarre than anything produced on this 
side of the Atlantic. 

The equivalent in music of this weird poetry is jazz, 
and like free verse, too, jazz claims to have invented 
new rhythms. Its chief characteristic, syncopation, how- 
ever, has been known to European and to Negro music 
for a long time, but jazz may still claim credit for car- 
rying syncopation to unheard of lengths, and for de- 
veloping it, with infinite and complicated nuances, into a 
sort of esoteric preciosity. The unrestraint of imagistic 
verse and its grotesque figures also find analogues in 
the use jazz makes of impure shades of pitch or 
“smears,” and its vociferous glorying in strident 
sounds. For the expression of the latter, jazz further 
utilizes a wide range of instruments usually os- 
tracized from polite music, such as automobile sirens, 
squawkers, cowbells, pistols, and all manner of uncanny 
toot-horns. Finally, the exquisite lyrics written to 
accompany jazz have almost as valid a claim to immor- 
tality as those of the imagists. In this connection we 
may note the line from a popular song, “Strolling 
with your girlie when the dew is pearly early in the 
morning.” 

Only less fanciful than imagistic verse and jazz is 
the architecture of the period, but this is merely because 
the expense and labor involved in building are too great 


INTRODUCTION 7 


to permit the erection of useless nightmares of brick 
and stone. Nevertheless, an approach to constructions of 
pure phantasy may sometimes be seen in the odd monu- 
ments erected to commemorate, in all seriousness, the 
heroes of the World War. There, as in verse and in 
jazz, is present the same attempt to counterfeit imagi- 
nation out of extravagance, and power out of meaning- 
less convulsions. Worthy of note also are the compro- 
mises between the fantastic and the practical existing 
in a few of our skyscrapers where the elements of a 
Gothic cathedral are mortised upon tall rectangles, the 
result being a sort of monstrous grain elevator with a 
steeple. The austere Gothic, to be sure, is a perfect and 
magnificently beautiful symbol for an ascetic religion, 
and the gigantic, squarish office buildings are equally 
perfect in expressing the spirit of commerce, albeit with 
an absolute lack of imagination, since apart from a 
certain imposing grandeur of size, these edifices are no 
more esthetic than enormous packing crates. It is the 
incongruous marriage of God and Mammon, however, 
that makes this hermaphroditic architecture so absurdly 
grotesque, and the desperate ransacking of the past for 
exotic motifs, rather than the creation of a new and 
fitting architectural symbol, proves that here too is an 
art sunk, in spite of its violently flamboyant protests, 
into decadence and degeneracy. 

The post impressionistic school of sculpture repre- 
sents an abandonment of the conventional, pictorial, 
and narrative concreteness of nature for some wildly 


8 INTRODUCTION 


esoteric symbolism. Thus, under the pretext of “eman- 
cipating” art, the language of sculpture would become 
phonetic rather than ideographic. Consequently, the 
universal, objective appeal being lost, a very compli- 
cated set of principles must be learned before the par- 
ticular “language” of the new art can be understood. 
As few feel tempted to master the various difficult, 
artistical syntaxes therein involved, the productions of 
the post impressionistic school, or rather schools, are 
as meaningless a gibberish as a foreign language not 
understood. Jacob Epstein, the Anglo-American pro- 
tagonist of the school, does not distort his art to the 
extremes to be seen in Europe. He does, however, in 
his attempt to express an idea rather than a reality, 
ruthlessly strip off all but the most essential traits of a 
figure, and these he over-emphasizes, the result often 
being a caricature of such grotesqueness that his very 
emphasis upon expression defeats its own ends. Um- 
berto Boccioni, the creator of the fantastic statue, 
Spiral Extension of Muscles in Action, goes much 
further and portrays what is almost a wholly disem- 
bodied idea. His esthetical compatriots trick their works 
out with all manner of materials, as alien to sculpture 
as the horrific toot-horns of jazz are to music, making 
use of glass, paper, leather, tin, mirrors, and even elec- 
tric lights, thereby giving to their creations something 
of the aspect of over-decorated Christmas trees. The 
Roumanian, Constantin Brancusi, dwells so long upon 


INTRODUCTION 9 


the symbolical essence of the human form that his 
strange bust of Mlle Pogany, with bald head, and huge, 
froggish eyes, resembles nothing so much as a six- 
months’ foetus. Most extreme of all is the work of the 
artistical Bolshevist, Alexander Archipenko, for he has 
abandoned objective realism to such an extent that he 
distorts his anatomies into geometrical shapes, besides 
ruthlessly lopping off fingers and toes, and leaving 
often, in place of heads, large blocks of stone in the 
rough. 

Painting probably wanders further into bizarrerie 
than any of the other arts. Beginning with the reason- 
able argument that the primary function of painting is 
not merely an accurate, photographic reproduction of 
nature, but rather the expression of an emotion or idea, 
the neo-impressionists started to eliminate whatever 
they regarded as unessential, and to exaggerate what 
to their lights seemed to be dominants. From that point 
the school of Fauvists, that is to say, wild beasts, at- 
tempted further to secure a maximum of expression 
by a minimum of means and, being sick of trite, fin de 
siécle elegance, copied the barbaric crudities of Poly- 
nesia and central Asia, making their own still cruder 
and more barbaric. Painting thus having been torn 
from its conventional hinges, a great number of strange 
schools grew up, possessing, like those of sculpture, 
particular, esoteric “languages” of their own. Cubism, 
originated by Pablo Picasso or Georges Broque, holds 
that strength is the essence of beauty and that a straight 


10 INTRODUCTION 


line is more powerful than a curved one. Deriving some 
questionable comfort from the geological hypothesis 
that crystals were primitive forms, they hold that since 
a smooth white pebble was originally a firm angular 
crystal, the waves of the sea, the clouds of the air, and 
even the very flowers and beasts of the fields should 
all be restored to the perfection, strength, and beauty | 
of their primal crystalline states. Hence the cubists 
reduce everything to straight lines and angles, and glory 
in the fact that their art has a firm, scientific foundation. 

With a logic that would render credit to theology, a 
recent Polish artist, Wassily Kandinsky, writing in his 
Art of Spiritual Harmony, argues that if a musician 
can make melodies without being restricted to the 
natural sounds of nature, a painter has also the equally 
unequivocable right to construct a picture without heed 
to natural forms. This dictum not only justifies cubism 
but sanctions the equally fantastic school of futurism. 
With great profundity, the Italian spokesman for the 
latter school, Signor Marinetti, affirms that “universal 
dynasm must be rendered in painting as a dynamic sen- 
sation; movement and light destroy the materiality of 
bodies,” and he further holds that art should simul- 
taneously depict all sides of an object and all phases of 
movement. Thus the futuristic painting A Lady and 
her Dog, by Giacomo Balla, shows by a countless welter 
of feet that the lady is walking, and the dog with 
innumerable tails justifies the inference that he is wag- 
ging that member, the whole, as Signor Marinetti 


INTRODUCTION 11 


would say, representing the “dynamic decomposition 
of matter.” 

The motive behind all these bizarre schools of art is 
the same, whether it operates in poetry, music, archi- 
tecture, sculpture, or painting. It is, in short, a frantic 
endeavor to hide the nakedness of imagination under 
garish and vulgar trappings. As many of the protago- 
nists of these arts lack even the rudiments of talent and 
technique, there is moreover, much insincerity, always 
more or less conscious, in the bluster and swagger with 
which they go about “emancipating”’ art. We find them 
excusing crudities as primitivism and nonsense as 
imagism, and we see them pretending that beneath the 
only too obvious want of idea there lies a subtle pro- 
fundity. On the other hand, in spite of the. blatant 
propaganda of this art, there is another cause, much 
deeper, which makes its various grotesqueries seem in- 
evitable, and that is a sort of artistical destiny which 
causes fantastic swirls and curious, half-submerged 
counter currents to be formed in the wake of every 
creative era of importance. 

The last period of any great creative significance for 
European art is romanticism, and whether or not we 
sympathize with its ideals, the fact cannot be ignored 
that it was a great force and that it left some remark- 
able monuments. Gradually, however, the powerful 
surge of romanticism, so resistless at first, spent itself, 
and as it dwindled, later artists attempted to reproduce 
consciously what had before flashed into existence al- 


12 INTRODUCTION 


most spontaneously. Thus the very movement which 
had broken the chains of an older formalism, began to 
bind its own subjects, and they, being weaker than their 
predecessors, allowed themselves to be led into the ar- 
tistical slavery of outworn romantic conceptions. Never- 
theless, there have always been irreconcilables even 
among slaves, and so in this later period of romanticism 
these fomented revolt, now under banners most hateful 
to romanticism such as naturalism and its congenres, 
and now by pursuing to extremes tendencies already 
latent in romanticism. These rebels thus initiated (just 
as Baudelaire, for example, prepared the way for the 
symbolists and the décadents) the bizarreries in the arts 
which have recently become so noticeable. 

It is the plan of the following study to trace the 
developments of another craze for fantastic art, quite 
similar in essence to that of the present but in a period 
three centuries remote, where the distant vantage point 
of time will permit its freakish productions to be seen 
in better perspective. The epoch we shall investigate is, 
in addition, one of much greater creative vigor than 
that of romanticism, and consequently its details will 
stand out in bolder relief. Furthermore, in concentrating 
our attention upon the arts of Spain we can see this 
relief accentuated more strongly still because in that 
country the various phases of art are more sharply 
defined than elsewhere, and its cultural maladies are 
therefore also to be witnessed in a more aggravated 
and distinct form. 


INTRODUCTION 13 


Before attempting this task, inasmuch as compari- 
sons will be made between the arts of various peo- 
ples and various epochs, and verdicts will be given upon 
the excellence of many works, it would be well perhaps 
to set forth briefly the two most important standards by 
which they are judged. Without doubt all personal 
credos, whether artistical or not, should in a measure 
partake of something of the privacy of one’s own body, 
that is to say they should never parade abroad with an 
unseemly exhibition of nakedness, but should always 
appear in public well clothed, and preferably in conven- 
tional attire. Nevertheless, since the writer speaks at 
times as one having authority, the reader is but privi- 
leged to know upon what prerogative the oracles rest. 
For this reason, if no other, an artistical confession of 
faith should be made at the outset. 

Let us therefore hasten to proclaim our disbelief in 
any eternal verities, at least in art, for art rests upon 
the senses as well as the imagination. On the other hand, 
we feel certain that time is a very thorough winnower, 
and that when a work of genius has been tossed again 
and again upon the contrary gusts of criticism and dis- 
favor, yet still remains within the people’s artistical 
granary with something of its first power and attrac- 
tion, then we may confidently say that such a work 
possesses universality, not absolute, to be sure, but in 
the light of a few thousand years comparatively so. It 
is this one quality which has kept alive, let us say, the 
Book of Job or the Iliad, and it is the one quality 


14 INTRODUCTION 


that shall probably endow the Gothic cathedral, the work 
of Shakespeare, Rembrandt, and others with an immor- 
tality as slowly mortal. Universality is the first and the 
great commandment of art, and without it no work ever 
comes into that gloriously luminous kingdom to which 
many aspire but to which few are chosen. 

So long has universality been recognized as the para- 
mount quality of art that it has somewhat obscured 
another essential of great importance, individuality. By 
this is not meant, necessarily, individuality of author, 
but rather individuality of time and environment, the 
particular essence that marks a work as being the 
product of one particular cultural milieu and no other. 
By itself inimical to universality, this quality is, strange 
as it may seem, its necessary complement. Shakespeare, 
universal as he is, brings on his stage none but Eliza- 
bethan Englishmen, whether they happen to be set in 
Rome, Venice, or Denmark; Dante is Florence of the 
Middle Ages; Phidias, the Athens of Pericles. After all, 
this individuality is, to resort to paradox, a kind of 
transient immortality, because the faithful articulation 
of a certain cultural pattern is often of such singular 
charm, that it lingers for a time through unsympathetic 
ages. 

In laying emphasis upon universality, our esthetic 
standards are classical in the sense that any work which 
survives the censures of time is to be regarded as a 
classic. By no means is this classicism to be interpreted 
as an attempt to regard the classics of Greece and Rome 


INTRODUCTION 15 


as models to which all works must conform in order to 
attain universality ; that indeed would savor of the most 
bigoted pedantry, quite inconsistent with our strong 
insistence upon individuality. Again, in stressing indi- 
viduality our standards would allow no rules or restric- 
tions of any kind to be placed upon art. This, however, 
should not be taken as a sanction of wholesale license 
and unrestraint. Art is essentially an aristocracy, an 
esthetical abbey of Théléme wherein each lordly genius 
may do what he wills, obeying no laws save those which, 
in his own nobility, he imposes upon himself. If any 
boor should creep into that elect society, and by uncouth 
bizarreries take advantage of its freedom, time alone 
will punish him, and punish him she will, with oblivion. 

The art of Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries possesses, if anything, more individuality than 
universality, and perhaps this explains why much of the 
art of her people is not as well known to the world as 
that of Italy, France, and England. Two important fac- 
tors, character and environment, contribute to this in- 
dividualism. The Spanish temperament is intense and 
marked by seemingly strange inconsistencies. Mystical 
to the point of ecstasy, and given to the wildest flights 
of fancy, it is at the same time marked by a very clear 
common sense and a realism that is hard to the point 
of grimness. The world in which the Spaniard moved 
was also one which would accentuate his character. In 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Spain, by a few 
melodramatic but ruthless strokes, became almost over- 


16 INTRODUCTION 


night the possessor of half the globe, and almost over- 
night by a few incredible blunders lost it again. On one 
hand this exaggerated the already marked rashness and 
arrogance in the national temper, and on the other it 
drove it into melancholy and religious introspections, 
the net result being to create a tense atmosphere of be- 
wilderment with hope and despair warring with one 
another. Spain then possessed something of the desper- 
ate frenzy of a gambler who has suddenly gained and 
lost an immense sum and recklessly hopes to get it back 
again. This stormy environment, producing conqueror 
and inquisitor, could not fail to make itself felt in an art 
of similar strongly pronounced qualities, an art which 
was likely to sin by extremes rather than to preserve a 
tranquil universality. 

Because of this brilliant, varicolored individuality it 
is very hard to give any brief, intelligent summary of 
Spanish art during the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies that will hold good for all its different aspects. 
We shall therefore sketch only in a very general way a 
few of the most important tendencies and note some 
of the contrasts that are to be found not only between 
currents, but between artists within those currents 
and even within the very style and work of the artist 
himself. Beginning, then, with literature we note the 
strong mystical vein in Spanish nature and find great 
difference between two famous religious writers, and 
also in their writings. Santa Teresa blends a very 
canny, “Scotch” shrewdness and humor with her ram- 


INTRODUCTION 7 


bling but rhapsodic subtleties while she describes the 
castle of the soul or writes to her nuns upon the domes- 
tic economy of one of her institutions. Luis de Leon, 
on the other hand, is formal and serious and brings into 
his ascetical religious introspections a Horatian ele- 
gance that is almost epicurean. In non-religious fiction 
the chimerical flights of the imagination find vent in 
the immensely popular novels of chivalry where drag- 
ons, damsels, knights, and enchanted castles are swept 
into a maze of strange adventures. Yet here, too, one 
finds odd unconformities, as for example, realism in- 
truding upon wild phantasy in the Tirant lo Blanch, 
whose burlesque and obscenity also make a sharp con- 
trast to the beauty and high ideals of that noble series 
of novels. Realism of the most sordid kind finds ex- 
pression in an equally popular sort of fiction, the pic- 
aresque novels, and there also is the same divergence 
in character of individual works as the romantic and 
erotic rascality of the Soldado Pindaro shows, especi- 
ally when placed beside the cynical bitterness of the 
Buscon. But the most important and most typical genre 
of that age of action is the drama, and most varied is 
its individuality. The exultant magnificence of Spain 
is expressed by Lope de Vega with a tremendous lyrical 
sweep, while her gloom suffuses the didacticism of 
Alarcon, and her punctilious sense of honor comes out 
in Calderén. It is, however, only in the great novel of 
Cervantes, also dramatic in its essence, that all phases 
of Spanish life and character merge, and that is why 


18 INTRODUCTION 


the Don Quixote is one of the most nearly universal 
and at the same time most individual works in the 
world’s literature. 

Music and architecture being subjective and pee 
more limited in scope than are letters, cannot show 
as great a diversity. In a very general way it is true 
that the mystical side of Spanish nature shows itself 
best in the mediaeval tradition of esotericism still sur- 
viving in the music of the Golden Age, while archi- 
tecture best portrays the splendid, flaunting magnifi- 
cence of the time. Yet even here, there are important 
exceptions, as in the rollicking folk songs which are. 
anything but mystical, and the Escorial, a sombre 
monument attesting to the austerity of the nation’s 
mysticism. 

Capable of much fuller expression are sculpture and 
painting, and in them the activity and impetuosity of 
the great age find vent in characterizations of boldness 
and animation. Sculpture portrays consistently the very 
inconsistencies of Spanish individualism, the great prov- 
inces particularly developing distinctive yet widely dif- 
fering traits. In Castile a sombre asceticism permeates 
the severe figures of saint and hidalgo, .and their atti- 
tudes and coloring are quite sober and restrained. Still, 
here too are exceptions, as the retables of Berruguete 
prove with their boisterousness and incontinent color. 
In contrast to the sculpture of this province is the ele- 
gance and sensuous beauty of the statues of Aragon, 
full of captivating cheerfulness, refinement, and ideal- 


INTRODUCTION 19 


ism. Nevertheless, in all its poiseful and charming 
idealism one may discover there a forceful realism that 
is wholly Spanish. Sevillan sculpture furnishes yet an- 
other opposition in its brooding, nebulous melancholy, 
sO apparent in the leader of the school, Montafiés, who 
attains to great nobility of form and delicacy of touch 
but at the same time shows a predilection for brilliant 
hues and richness in the use of gold. In spite of all this 
variety in the provincial schools, there is not a single 
trait which does not faithfully reflect some element in 
the national consciousness, and yet, on the other hand, 
few sculptors have been able to embody more than one 
or two of these elements in their art. For that reason 
the sculpture of Spain is, for the most part, monadic— 
an idiosyncrasy obviously militating against univer- 
sality although it contributes to a very pronounced 
artistic personality, but one, unfortunately, approach- 
ing perilously close to caricature. 

Literature excepted, painting constitutes the crown- 
ing glory of Spanish art, and here too the same gen- 
eralization will hold which we have made for sculpture, 
although the greater fluidity of painting permits a 
much richer variety. In contrast to the gaiety and sim- 
plicity of the Sevillan school, always bringing to mind 
the names of Juan de las Roelas and Murillo, we may 
note the cult of the ugly by Zurbaran in Estremadura. 
Against the warm deep colors of the Valencian school, 
we may place the spectral paleness of Castile’s great 
artist, El Greco, of whom more later. In all provinces 


20 INTRODUCTION 


there is nevertheless in Spanish painting one predomi- 
nating characteristic, and that is the strong penchant 
for realism, or perhaps it would be better to say real- 
isms, since, despite the sharp fidelity of the Spanish 
artist to realism, his scope rarely embraces more than 
a single phase of it. Thus in painting as in sculpture, 
the vehemence of the painter in attempting to depict 
faithfully his narrow outlook, is conducive to over-em- 
phasis and so, paradoxically, his realism makes him 
unreal. Only one artist, Velazquez, has, like Cervantes, 
succeeded in gathering all the elements of life, or nearly 
all of them. For that reason those two geniuses are 
perhaps the only two of all Spain who will for long 
have any indisputable claim to universality, or what is 
the same thing, immortality. 

Much of Spanish art, then, can claim recognition 
alone from its ability to present the transient and the 
particular in an interesting and colorful fashion. But 
any art that must become arresting in order to be 
noticed very quickly develops a cult for the startling 
and the peculiar. We have already noticed the unilateral 
tendencies in Spanish art and have suggested that they 
provide fertile fields for caricature. We have also 
pointed to the fervor of the Spanish temperament and 
have noted factors in the spiritual environment of the 
Golden Age which would increase the restlessness of 
that nature and stress its peculiar intensity. Nothing 
could be more natural then than to discover the erratic 
individualism of the Spanish soul finding an outlet in 


INTRODUCTION 21 


an art equally pronounced. It should also occasion little 
wonder to find this artistic expression becoming at 
times violent and fantastic in an extreme degree. 
Finally, we should not be surprised to see in the monu- 
ments of Spain not only little universality but a strange 
individuality so distorted as to lose all semblance with 
sane art, evoking interest rather from the standpoint of 
cultural psychopathy. It is then to the study of such 
a bizarre art that we have dedicated the following 
chapters. 


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II. THE MEANING OF GONGORISM 


O EVERY nation there comes a period in 
which works of genius seem more com- 
mon than at any other time. The spirit of 
a people then attains its most perfect ar- 
} ticulation, and masterpieces are created, at 


Once so individual as to be mistaken for the utterance 
of no other folk and yet at the same time so universal 
as to appeal to all time. Indeed they seem as imperish- 
able as mountains and like them, in restrospect, loom 
up as landmarks of the nation’s culture and symbols of 
its intellectual greatness. Periods like this have given to 
England Spenser, Jonson, Marlowe, and Shakespeare, 
and to France Corneille, Racine, and Moliére. Moreover, 
the works of genius produced at such a time are as 
inimitable as they are enduring, and artists of succeed- 
ing years, notwithstanding care and effort, fail to 
ascend heights so lofty. Thus, with the passage of cen- 
turies, realization comes at last that the summits are 
inaccessible. Men look back upon them with a half- 
melancholy wonder and refer to the time they mark as 
a golden or classic age. 


[ 22 ] 


THE MEANING OF GONGORISM 23 


Spain too had such an interval, called with justice the 
Golden Age, and the contrast between that glamorous 
time and the rest of her artistic history is even more 
sharply marked than similar periods usually are in other 
countries. The Golden Age stands out as a season of 
unparalleled prodigality in artistic culture, and every 
province of art is able to boast of at least one master. 
Victoria brings new intensity into the recondite mysti- 
cism of Spanish music; Berruguete animates sculpture 
with a tumultuous passion, just as El Greco does in 
painting; while Velasquez, vivid and impersonal, sets 
the hall mark upon Spanish realism. In literature es- 
pecially, the age vindicates its title both in the quality 
and in the quantity of its productions, for Spain, in 
addition to her novelist Cervantes, possesses four men 
of genius in the drama alone. The works of the Spanish 
playwrights are too numerous even to admit of ac- 
quaintance; Calderon, for example, has about seventy 
plays to his credit, Tirso de Molino has written ap- 
proximately four hundred, and with Lope de Vega the 
number leaps to somewhere between fifteen hundred 
and two thousand. The Golden Age, then, is one not 
only of perfection but of immense energy and pro- 
ductivity. 

But it is inevitable that so furious a conflagration 
should generate smoke sufficient to obscure some of the 
brightness of its flame. Just as much of the splendor of 
the Golden Age lies in the superb magnificence of its 
culture, so its chaotic exuberance derives largely from 


24 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


the same extravagance. This is a time when the tone, 
the pace, the very attitude of art, all put on the grand 
manner. Noble thoughts, of course, lodge ostentatiously, 
and, as a natural consequence, trivialities also begin to 
affect residences of unbecoming grandeur. In short, the 
Golden Age, with all the power of its master minds, is 
nevertheless a period of ungoverned bombast. 

Literature, then, disregards all sumptuary laws, and 
the once austere Castilian tongue adopts the starched 
ruff and slashed doublet of the age. Soon we notice the 
existence of an affected school of poetry similar to 
those schools of elegance in which exquisite fops were 
taught manners, dress, the coiffure of the hair and 
beard, even the painting of the face. And the puppets 
of the court assiduously cultivate every innovation in 
language, every conceited frivolity of phrase, and every 
nicety to the polished tournure of a thought. With the 
passage of time these affectations become exaggerated, 
manners develop into mannerisms, delicate concepts de- 
generate into fantastical conceits, and what once at- 
tracted by its novelty repels by its grotesqueness, until 
at length so outlandish the style becomes and so numer- 
ous grow its devotees, that it attains the proportions of 
a veritable epidemic and receives the notice of a special 
name. 

From the Cordovan poet, Don Luis de Géngora y 
Argote (1561-1627), this style is called gongorism be- 
cause it is a characteristic of some of his poetry. He is 
not, however, the innovator of this flamboyant manner, 


THE MEANING OF GONGORISM 25 


but from the fact that he carries it to extremes before 
unheard of, he becomes, in a measure, the symbol of the 
movement and therefore quite suitably lends to it his 
name. As a matter of fact, it has another title, or rather 
two of them, neither being quite synonomous because 
the style has never been altogether understood, and one 
term is sometimes applied to a particular set of elements — 
in the bizarre manner, while the other is attached to a 
somewhat different series. The term for the style usu- 
ally regarded as the closest likeness to gongorism is 
cultism, so called because only the cultos, persons of 
highly sublimated culture, could appreciate this abstruse 
manner. Briefly stated, cultism consists in the predilec- 
tion for an obscure language, latinized in vocabulary 
and syntax, and surcharged with extravagant figures of 
speech. Contrasting to some degree with this definition 
is the one given for the other term, conceptism. This, in 
turn, may be described as a style which, as its name im- 
plies, is marked by an abuse of metaphysical conceits 
and, in addition, philosophic paradoxes and obscure 
references. Theoretically the two styles are quite dis- 
tinct since one is supposed to be concerned primarily 
with words and the other with ideas, but inasmuch as 
words are the vehicle of ideas, the borderland between 
the various elements of cultism and those of conceptism 
becomes so vague that confusion inevitably results from 
any attempt to set a sharp line of demarcation between 
the two. 

It is not difficult to discover a number of reasons for 


26 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


this, since some traits are common to both styles. Ob- 
scurity, for instance, may arise in cultism from the use 
of jumbled syntax, or it may occur in conceptism from 
too cryptic epigramming, the results in either case often 
being indistinguishable. Again an element of one style 
may blend with one of the constituents of the other. — 
Thus, puns are classed as cultist because they play upon 
words, and paradoxes as conceptist because they play 
upon ideas. Yet paradoxes are prone to degenerate into 
the mere verbal flourishes of cultism, and, on the other 
hand, the word-jingling of a pun may also contain a 
brilliant play of ideas, which therefore encroaches upon 
conceptism. Again, a too sweeping nomenclature of some 
of the details comprising the styles augments this con- 
fusion. To cite an example, figures of speech are lumped 
as cultist on the assumption that they paint images, and 
metaphysical conceits as conceptist because they evoke 
only ideas. However, there are a number of figures of 
speech such as metaphors, which conjure up both 
images and ideas. An image, in the last analysis, is an 
idea, while the ideation of a metaphor is inherent in its 
image. Accordingly, the attempt to set a cleavage be- 
tween denotation and connotation is only an occult sub- 
tlety, possible to be sure, but impracticable. An illustra- 
tion of the confusion arising from such abstruse hair- 
splitting is seen in Menéndez y Pelayo’s statement that 
the use of allegory is a peculiarity of the conceptist style 
alone. Although this critic countenances the partition 
of images to cultism and ideas to conceptism, in this 


THE MEANING OF GONGORISM 27 


particular instance he fails to realize that allegory, like 
personification, of which it is only an extension, is 
really making concrete images out of ideas, or, in other 
words, making stones out of sermons instead of seeing 
sermons in stones. The operation of cutting the stones 
from the sermon is consequently as difficult as it is 
dangerous. 

An even more fertile ground for the confusion of 
cultism and conceptism lies in the fact that a writer who 
affects one style often uses some of the elements of 
another. The problem then is no longer one of classify- 
ing the tools but rather the workman who uses them. 
In case the writer uses about as many of the implements 
of cultism as he does of conceptism, or if he uses those 
of cultism in turning out one piece of work and then 
those belonging to conceptism in finishing another, the 
greatest chaos results among critics who feel impelled, 
as it were, to set apart the cultist sheep from the con- 
ceptist goats. Gracian is just such a writer, and great is 
the diversity of opinion regarding him. Korting brands 
him as a cultist, and Baist, as unalterably, a conceptist ; 
Ticknor describes his work as “poetry for the culto 
school” and also says that he “defended the gongorism 
of the preceding period,” to which Fitzmaurice-Kelly 
answers, “no man ever wrote with more scorn for gon- 
gorism and all its work”; Hannay ventures the state- 
ment, “It was his chosen function to be the critic, 
prophet and popularizer of gongorism” ; and Cejador y 
Frauca grows quite excited in proving Gracian alto- 


28 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


gether conceptist. Such conflicting opinions occur inter- 
minably. 

Finally, a cause for confusing the two styles arises 
from the tendency on the part of some critics to be im- 
pressed by a particularly dominant trait in the work of 
a conceptist or cultist writer, regarding this trait subse- 
quently as a sort of shibboleth by which to ascertain the 
conceptism or cultism of other writers. GOngora’s use 
of neologisms is such an outstanding characteristic of 
his style that this is sometimes regarded as an inevitable 
adjunct of cultism. Hence writers using neologisms, like 
Herrera, are unjustly charged with cultism, while in- 
dubitably cultist writers, such as Paravicino, are some- 
times freed of the charge simply because their work 
lacks that one peculiarity. It must be evident, therefore, 
that cultism and conceptism possess much in common. 
Many of their particular esthetic possessions are so con- 
fused, that it is practically impossible to effect a clear 
repartition of the elements constituting the property of 
each. This need not surprise us if we realize that both 
styles are children of a single parent—affectation—a 
supercilious parent, indeed, who never left a definite 
literary legacy. 

Therefore, gongorism, like Janus, may be regarded 
as always possessing a single head with two faces, the 
cultist and conceptist. Theoretically the aspect of the 
one may be regarded as exoteric, consisting mainly in 
the meretricious ornamentation of the medium of 
thought—language. The nature of the other, similarly, 


THE MEANING OF GONGORISM 29 


is largely esoteric, showing itself in the subtle embellish- 
ment of the thought, rather than the medium. Beyond 
this no distinction is justified. Certainly, since neither 
thought nor medium can exist in literature independ- 
ently, it is impossible to exclude conceptism from gon- 
gorism, or cultism from conceptism. As a matter of fact, 
the only reason for preserving the theoretical distinc- 
tion at all is that certain gongoristic writers make more 
use of cultist than conceptist elements, or vice versa, 
and when we are dealing with the possible influences of 
one gongoristic author upon another, recourse to this 
discrimination is often of value in confirming or dis- 
proving the influence in question. In exactly the same 
way it will be of advantage to us later on when we turn 
to movements quite similar to gongorism in the litera- 
tures of other nations and there inquire as to pos- 
sible influences. Ultimately, it will also serve when we 
come to investigate an extension of the gongoristic 
style to the music and fine arts of Spain. Were it not for 
this no attempt to discriminate between cultism and con- 
ceptism would be made, and Mérimée’s opinion, that the 
two styles “really cannot be distinguished at all” might 
then be accepted without much objection. 
Fitzmaurice-Kelly describes gongorism simply as 
“bad taste” and dismisses it without further analysis, 
but since a great deal of the misunderstanding of the 
style arises from just this—the failure to scrutinize it 
carefully, a detailed investigation of gongorism should 
be undertaken first of all in order to resolve it into its 


30 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


constituent elements. We have observed that Gongora 
is largely the symbol of the style because he carries it to 
greater extremes than any other writer, and we may 
add that he makes use of a greater variety of artifices 
to attain his affected manner than either his imitators 
or esthetic predecessors. In fact, he uses practically all 
the devices they use and more, besides using them in 
greater concentration. Hence an examination of Gén- 
gora’s poetical arsenal will disclose nearly all the bizarre 
weapons ever wielded by cultists or conceptists. On the 
other hand, while this inventory will give a compre- 
hensive survey of the ordnance of the movement, it is 
apt to give an exaggerated idea of the equipment of the 
individual gongorist of the rank and file, because none 
of Gongora’s followers are so armed to the.teeth as he. 
Accordingly, the subsequent analysis of gongorism will 
accomplish two things: the description of the phenom- 
enon as it occurs in the poetry of Gongora, and the de- 
lineation of gongorism, the movement, at its worst. In 
other words, we shall note all the symptoms of a cul- 
tural delirium-tremens by describing an extreme case, 
reserving for the next chapter the pulse-feeling and 
temperature-taking of a number of individuals who will 
give us the norm for the malady. 

A noticeable characteristic of gongorism consists in 
the introduction of new words. This, of course, is not 
to be condemned in itself since it is one of the natural 
processes of linguistic evolution. A language must al- 
ways grow as the cultural life of a people matures, new 


THE MEANING OF GONGORISM 31 


ideas requiring suitable vehicles for their expression. 
Hence new words are continually falling upon the lan- 
guage, sometimes almost imperceptibly during seasons 
of artistic drought; sometimes descending in torrents 
during periods of great literary storm and stress; then, 
unless the soil of the age absorbs them, they occasion 
floods even more disastrous to culture than long, lin- 
guistical dry spells. Milton, Dante, and Rabelais have 
discharged cloudbursts of words upon their respective 
languages, and, while many of the neologisms have re- 
mained, a large percentage have been lost. For words, 
as for living things, the law of the survival of the fittest 
seems to apply, and hence the praise or the blame for a 
neologism lies in its own capacity to take root and 
flourish or, lacking that, to be crowded out to die. Many 
of the words introduced by gongorists have survived, 
for which we should be grateful, since they have as- 
suredly contributed to the elegance and the flexibility 
of speech. On the other hand, those neologisms which 
time has rejected, must inevitably condemn the gon- 
gorists because, almost without exception, the words 
which have perished have been useless synonyms formed 
in contradiction to the spirit of the language. A few 
illustrations of the sort of neologisms, both good and 
bad, introduced by gongorism, may be of interest. 
Almost all are latinisms, some (canoro, purpurear, can- 
dor, aurora, horrendo, ceruelo, and auriga) being po- 
etical elegances, while others (cdlamo, tdlamo, palestra, 
meta, and turba) combine pedantry with the poetical. 


32 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Still more (inexrpugnable, bipartido, protonado, caligi- 
noso, apocrifo, and Eclipticas) are obviously created for 
their sonorous pedantic roll. Nevertheless, out of justice 
to the gongorists, it should be observed that the total 
number of their neologisms is not large, and further- 
more the new words are used in general quite sparingly, 
although Gongora occasionally runs a number together 
within a few lines. 

Propicio albor del Hespero luciente, 

Que illustra dos Eclipticas ahora, 


Purpureaba al Sandoual que oi dora.1 
Panegyrico [142-144] 


But if gongorism can be pardoned for some of its - 
neologisms on the ground of having enriched the lan- 
guage, this excuse cannot save it from the wholesale 
condemnation of its hyperbates, or innovations in syn- 
tax. New words may be welcome as guests provided 
their stay in the language evokes pleasant memories or 
causes interesting associations, but a new syntactical ar- 
rangement involves an entirely new habit of living, a 
topsy-turvy house cleaning and shifting about of some 
of the most patriarchial members of the grammatical 
family. Perhaps this explains why none of the gram- 
matical innovations of gongorism have survived, while 
some of its verbal inventions have. 

The hyperbates of gongorism fall in two general 
classes : approximations of the grammatical patterns of 
the classical languages, those of the Latin being by far 
the commonest; and fantastic, chaotic jumblings of 


THE MEANING OF GONGORISM 33 


syntax which have no precedent. Of the first group, a 
common trait is the omission of the article or, when it 
is used, its removal to some distance from the word it 
modifies. 

De el siempre en la montafia oppuesto pino? 

Soledad primera [15] 

Similarly, other words: besides articles are separated 
from those with which they belong. 


Donde espumoso el mar Siciliano 
El pie argenta de plata al Lilybeo3 
Poliphemo i Galathea [25-26] 


Again, there are interpositions which are rendered even 
more complex by placing others within them. 
El oro al tierno Alcides, que guardado 


De el vigilante fue Dragon horrendo4 
Panegyrico [75-76] 


Another imitation of Latin syntax occurs in the many 
approximations of the ablative absolute, and the poet 
even turns to Greek grammar for his innovations, the 
most striking being an attempt to approach the Greek 
accusative or accusative of specification. 

Lasciua el mouimiento 


Mas los ojos honesta5 
Soledad primera [256-257] 


But the most violent hyperbates belong, as we have 
said, to that class consisting of chaotic arrangements 
justified by no language. In the following example 
a conjunction is lacking between two adjectives, and 


34 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


the determinative, removed from its noun, is obscured 
by a number of epithets. 
Lagrimosas de amor dulces querellas 
Da al mar; que condolido, 
Fue a las ondas, fue al viento 
El misero gemido 


Segundo de Arion, dulce instrumento.® 
Soledad primera [10-14] 


In addition to neologisms and hyperbates, a further 
element of gongorism consists in the juxtaposition of 
cumbersome polysyllables with shorter words, cre- 
ating thereby a rather ludicrous effect which is rarely 
intended. 


Artificiosamente da exhalada™ 
Soledad primera [649] 


In fact, it seems as if gongorists felt that the reverber- 
ating sonority of this ample syllabication was increased 
by the contrast of short, sharp words; and not only 
words but sentences also are drawn out endlessly, bring- 
ing into play every syntactical device and every ruse 
of rhetorical strategy to prolong the interminable lin- 
guistical bombardment. Of these syntactical auxiliaries 
the commonest is parallel structure, augmented and 
sharpened, usually, by repetition or antithesis. The 
commonest rhetorical aid is apostrophe, frequently re- 
inforced by exclamation and interrogation. 

CAMILIO O blanca luna prolija! 


ISABELA O Endimion zahareno 
Bien mio! 


THE MEANING OF GONGORISM 35 


CAMILIO Tu labios sella. 
ISABELA Llora el alma! 

CAMILIO Llore un rio. 
ISABELA Clamare. 

CAMILIO Clama. 

LAURETA O desuio! 
ISABELA O amor! 

CAMILIO O honra! 

LAURETA O estrella! 


Comedia de las firmezas de Isabela8 [1134-1139] 


Yet neither this rhetoric with all its frenzied out- 
bursts, pedantic words, and architectonic sentence struc- 
ture, nor the violent hyperbates and extraordinary 
neologisms described above, would have won for gon- 
gorism the notoriety it now endures, were it not for 
its grotesque figures of speech. These undoubtedly 
form the most striking element of the style and best 
reveal the affectation behind it. Every attempt is made 
in the poetry of gongorism to arrest attention, not so 
much by what is said as by the way in which it is ex- 
pressed, and in consequence we see the cult for the 
novel and the bizarre carried to irritating proportions. 
As might be expected, oxymoron, the juncture of con- 
tradictory words, becomes a common device, so that 
we find such expressions as “silent rhetoric’ and 
“burning ice”; or, again, epithets made of compounds 
such as “purple hours” and “diamond smile” which 
possess no real or figurative relationship. Favorite ad- 
jectives are also worked to exhaustion, as for example 
“crystal” and “crystalline” which recur over and over 


36 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


again in the most inappropriate connections: “crystal 
shadows,” “crystal bones,” “crystal leaves,” “crystal- 
line butterflies,’ and even the “crystalline heaven of a 
woman’s hands.” 

Truly the complicated figures of speech of gongor- 
ism might well justify the French axiom “Whoever 
strains for wit wastes what he has.’”’ The more elab- 
orate metaphors evoke not admiration but ridicule. A 
lover describes himself as “burning upon a woman’s 
altars,’ another gallant is so disturbed by his lady’s 
departure that he “navigates tears of fire,’ and a 
second-rate poet has reached such olympic heights that 
he “speaks nectar and writes ambrosia.” Descriptions 
of nature are particularly ornamented by conceits, as 
may be seen when a foamy brook “boils melodious 
silver,” “the dog star barks,” the constellation of Orion 
angrily “fences with his sword in the skies,” and “the 
clock of the stars strikes twelve o’clock.”” Metaphors be- 
come incongruously mixed as they become more in- 
volved. Gongora’s ode De la toma de Larache furnishes 
an illustration, for there the poet speaks of a river as a 
crystal serpent which empties into the ocean, and he 
describes the discharge of water as “the sea drinks its 
name”; then, later in the poem, the same river is re- 
ferred to as an elephant which ultimately turns into a 
lion, whereupon the ocean becomes more respectful to 
it. In his first Soledad (solitary musing) Gongora 
compares the water of a stream, wherein some one was 
drowned, to “the venom of a snake of dew’; and in 


99 «66 9d 66 


THE MEANING OF GONGORISM of 


his second Soledad the poet describes a tree growing 
by the water as “trampling upon a spring,” explaining 
to us further on that this spring is really a serpent 
which vomits forth not venom but dew, and which, 
after enfolding the flowers upon its bank, finally sheds 
its scaly skin of silver upon the trunk of the afore- 
mentioned tree. 

Compared to such figures of speech the extravagance 
of the remaining elements comprising the gongoristic 
style seems pale. Accordingly, one is not apt to be so 
strongly impressed by the ubiquitousness of its puns 
and paradoxes, both devices rarely rising above mere 
verbal quibbles and jingles or rhetorical antitheses. 


Dicen que ha hecho Lopico 
Contra mi versos adversos 
Mas si io buelbo mi pico 
Con el pico de mis versos 
A este Lopico lo-pico 

[489] 


In spite of the contention that puns are cultist and 
paradoxes conceptist, the close connection between the 
two is attested by comparing the pun just quoted with 
a paradox: in either case it may be seen that there is 
as much play upon words as ideas. 

Con la muerte libraros de la muerte 


I el infierno vencer con el infierno.® 
Sonnet [253] 


Two figures of speech, personification and allegory, 
may also be grouped together, since the second is 


38 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


merely an extension of the first, notwithstanding the 
claim that allegory belongs to conceptism and the other 
to cultism. As personification is one of the most over- 
worked devices of the gongoristic school, it is discov- 
erable in all stages of development, ranging from 
merely calling the attention to some abstract quality to 
an elaboration of many of its characteristics, in fact, 
we may say, up to its metamorphosis into a full-fledged 
allegory. Uusually, however, a few brief conceits suf- 
fice to complete the attributes of the trope. 


La admiracion, vestido un marmol frio, 
Apenas arquear las cejas pudo; 
La emulacion, calcada un duro ielo, 
Torpe se arraiga.10 

Soledad primera [999-1002] 


Allegories may be spun out to immense length, as may 
be seen from the Soledades, which are usually consid- 
ered allegories of the seasons of human life, the poet 
intending to bring the total number up to four. If this 
plan had been fulfilled on the same scale of the two 
which remain, the result would have been such a figure 
in some four thousand lines. As it is, the Soledades 
which we possess have other allegories embedded within 
them and even additional ones within these, to say 
nothing of innumerable personifications so elaborate as 
to be really allegories on a small scale. 

A final trait of gongorism remains to be described, 
and that is obscurity, although from the elements al- 
ready enumerated it is evident that obscurity must be 


THE MEANING OF GONGORISM 39 


inevitable. While this assumption is correct, we must 
note a special sort of obscurity which is altogether in- 
tentional and which results from an affectation of 
various poetical pedantries. First among these are 
obscure allusions, frequently couched in periphrases at 
times so obscure as to be veritable enigmas. Poetry, to 
the gongorists, was by no means a simple democratic 
art ; on the contrary the excellence of a composition was 
rated directly according to the difficulty the reader ex- 
perienced in understanding it. Just before the death of 
the emperor Mathias, two comets appeared, and. the 
date is darkly stated as follows: 
En afio quieres que plural cometa 
Infausto corta a las coronas luto, 
Los vestigios pisar del Griego astuto ?11 
Sonnet [326] 
The astute Greek mentioned in the last line is, of course, 
Ulysses, and this habit of referring to classical worthies 
introduces another feature of the poetical pedantry of 
gongorism. However, far from being as transparent as 
the allusion to Ulysses, classical references are often 
quite tenuous. 
EI bosque diuidido en islas pocas, 
Fragrante productor de aquel aroma 
Que, traduzido mal por el Egypto, 
Tarde le encomendo el Nilo a sus bocas, 
I ellas mas tarde a la gulosa Grecia; 
Clauo no, espuela si del apetito 
Que, quanto en conocelle tardo Roma 


Fue templado Caton, casta Lucretia.12 
Soledad primera [491-498] 


40 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


At length, over all this pedantry, as if it were not 
already obscure enough, there is thrown a richly em- 
broidered mantle of altisonant poetical language such 
as poetasters always use to cover up the poverty and 
the gauntness' of their own ideas. It is a trick quite 
similar to the sonorous, rhythmical incantations and 
other occult abracadabra of magical formulae; and, 
indeed, both are used for the same reason, namely, to 
create an atmosphere of mystical profundity about that 
which otherwise would appear as nothing but obvious 
chicanery. 


De €ste pues formidable de la tierra 

Bostego, el melancolico vazio 

A POLIPHEMO, horror de aquella sierra, 

Barbara choga es, aluergue umbrio 

I redil espacioso, donde encierra 

Quanto las cumbres asperas cabrio 

De los montes esconde, copia bella 

Que un siluo junta i un pefiasco sella.13 
Poliphemo [41-48] 


To recapitulate the constituents of gongorism, it may 
be said that this flamboyant style is made up of a num- 
ber of elements which may roughly be grouped under 
two heads: affectation in language, or cultism; and 
affectation in thought, or conceptism—with the under- 
standing, of course, that the two classes are not distinct 
but blended. As to separate elements, those which seem 
most definitely cultist are neologisms, hyperbates, bom- 
bast, and involved sentences. Other components which 
may be either cultist, conceptist or both, are the archi- 


THE MEANING OF GONGORISM 41 


tectonic devices of rhetoric and the use of bizarre fig- 
ures of speech, especially metaphors, puns, paradoxes, 
personification, and allegory. Finally there are traits 
which incline usually, though not invariably, to con- 
ceptism, and these are the pedantic ornamentations of 
thought secured by obscure references and mythological 
allusions. As we have said, this is gongorism seen 
through the work of the poet Gongora, although it 
represents at the same time a complete assortment of 
all the devices used by his school. The next step is to 
form an acquaintance with some of its most important 
members and make a few inquiries into the special 
nature of their own contributions to the exuberant 
rhetoric so characteristic of the Golden Age. 


Ill. THE EXTENT OF GONGORISM 


WAN OF Cordova,” “Homer of Spain,” 
and “Prince of Lyric Poets’”—such are 
the titles bestowed upon Gongora by the 
admiring poetasters of his day; we who 
consider ourselves calmer and more ma- 
ture than the men of the seventeenth century, find such 
a reputation difficult to comprehend. We are apt to for- 
get the boisterous spirit of that unrestrained period 
because, after all, few traces have come down to our 
dry, sober times, of its literary debauches. To be sure 
its florid exuberance confronts us now and then when 
we turn to the classics of the Golden Age, ample re- 
minders of gongorism being present in the purple 
patches of Calderén and in the precious conceits of 
Lope de Vega. But time has submerged most of the 
volcanic poetry erupted during that chaotic era, and 
the flamboyant gongoristic crater, which once thun- 
dered so high and awesomely, has rapidly subsided 
until it is now hardly more .than a small island, still 
somewhat shunned and unknown, off the mainland of 
Spanish literature. Yet it is possible with a few sound- 


[42] 


THE EXTENT OF GONGORISM 43 


ings to fathom the extent of this obscure poetry and 
by digging under the ashes of three centuries to dis- 
cover curious relics of a corrupt but once extensive 
literature; and no more convincing proof of its size 
and importance can be given than to run over some of 
the great names of its artistic dead, recall their rdles, 
and discover how long their esthetic ideals are per- 
petuated by their poetical posterity. 

In making inquiry into the relationships and liaisons 
between gongorism and those long dead, we must not 
be scandalized to discover that one of the names most 
frequently associated with the corrupt, degenerate style 
is not only that of a minister of the gospel but the 
court preacher to Philip IV himself, Fray Hortensio 
Félix Paravicino y Arteaga (1580-1633). After all, 
in spite of his being a preacher, it is not tremendously 
surprising in that age to find him taking after a mere- 
tricious style incontinently; and therefore, when he 
impregnates his sermons with pagan mythology and 
when their heavy sentences groan and ache with inflated 
conceptions, it is not difficult to imagine the feelings 
with which his congregation must have attended the 
delivery of his rhetorical progeny. While he invents 
almost no neologisms and uses few hyperbates, he imi- 
tates GOngora very closely in other respects, especially 
in the use of puns, paradoxes, and grotesque metaphors. 
Indeed, so great is his admiration of the Spanish 
Homer that he heaps upon him some of the sychophancy 


44 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


usually reserved for the ears of the Deity alone: “May 
my offering in gracious cloud,” he exclaims to Géngora, 
“in equal wealth of fragrance, bestrew thine altars.” 

Paravicino’s most famous effusions consist of ser- 
mons composed for occasions of solemn import, such 
as the funeral panegyric delivered at the death of 
Queen Margaret of Austria (1611), and the elegy upon 
King Philip III (1621). He has also a number of 
gongoristic presentation and dedication speeches, and 
the elegant minister knew how to turn his hand to 
verse as well, as the posthumous collection of poems 
printed in 1629 testifies. Certain of these verses are 
frivolous and witty—that is, after an ecclesiastical fash- 
ion—while others, especially the Phaeton, Daphne, and 
the Europa, are serious gongoristic excursions into the 
realm of classical mythology. So unrestrained, in fact, 
is Paravicino’s style that we may note, in passing, that 
this prolific priest is sometimes suspected of being the 
father of the swaddled rhetoric usually laid at Gén- 
gora’s own door. However, since Paravicino’s abnor- 
mal proclivities scarcely reached their artistic puberty 
before 1611, this suspicion is not justified, because as 
we shall see later, Géngora began courting the fan- 
tastical muse much sooner. 

Though a preacher’s association with a meretricious 
style might evoke some comment, the philanderings of 
Don Juan de Tassis (1580-1622) with the gongoristic 
muse, are not surprising. This gallant rake, notwith- 
standing his satires upon the immorality of the court, _ 


THE EXTENT OF GONGORISM 45 


was assassinated because of a passionate love affair 
with the queen. In his pocket were found some verses 
beginning: 
Sefiora, cuyo valor 
Tanto excede el ser humano, 


Quien os diera por su mano 
Un ala del dios de amor !! 


é 


This hyperbole is as characteristic of Tassis as his 
fondness for puns. Indeed, in regard to the latter, there 
is a story that he donned a suit bordered with silver 
reales at a masque and impudently advertised his liaison 
with the queen by wearing on his costume the legend, 
“Mis amores son reales.’® At any rate his mordant 
satires and witty epigrams are full of puns, and from. 
the following jibe at the Alguacil of the court it is not 
difficult to realize why he was banished thence so many 
times. 

Qué galan que entro Vergel 

Con cintillo de diamantes ! 


Diamantes que fueron antes 
De amantes de su mujer. 


Malicious as his spirit is, Tassis nevertheless be- 
friended many poets, among the number being Gon- 
gora, and his interest in the latter was more than casual 
since he imitates the Cordovan Swan in Europa, Apolo 
y Daphne, Fabula de la Phoemx, and Fabula de Phae- 
ton. In these poems he is very obscure, and though he 
uses relatively few neologisms and hyperbates, he ap- 
proximates very closely the manner of the leader of 


46 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


the movement, whom he befriended and so much ad- 
mired. Furthermore, Tassis did much for the spread 
of gongorism in general, because, besides acting as a 
Maecenas to its individual members, his high position 
as Count of Villamediana and his reputation with the 
wits and young bloods of the court endowed the move- 
ment with sufficient caste and tone to make it an 
attractive fad for the aristocracy, and once a plaything 
of theirs its success was assured. 

With the impetus given gongorism in the pulpit by 
Paravicino and in the court by Tassis, to say nothing 
of the stir already created by its picturesque leader, 
Gongora, the new movement swept the country. But it 
had enemies, nevertheless, for Pedro de Valencia 
(1555-1620), a crabbed humanist at the court, immedi- 
ately denounced the fad with the inhuman bitterness 
characteristic of so many early humanists. Showing 
considerably more restraint and intelligence, Juan de 
Jauregui y Aguilar (1570?-1650), a scholar-poet and 
discriminating critic, followed with a number of at- 
tacks, the first printed being contained in the preface 
to his Rimas (1618). But so invincible was the tide of 
gongorism that even Jauregui lost his head and was 
swept along with it, and by the time his Antidota contra 
las soledades came out in print (1624) he had already 
written his poem Orfeo in the new style which the 
Antidota was denouncing. To save his pride, Jauregui 
claimed that the metamorphosis in his manner was 
occasioned by trying to translate Lucan’s Pharsalia, a 


THE EXTENT OF GONGORISM 47 


translation, by the way, much more garish and con- 
ceited than the original. His literary conversion as well 
as its explanation, however, brought him only the scorn 
of both sides, each regarding him as something of a 
traitor. GOngora, for instance, ridicules his style, and 
charges him with trying to sing in three languages at 
once. In addition, some anonymous poet questions his 
literary sex. 
Vergajo de las musas, qué nos quieres? 


Declarate en las hembras o en los machos, 
Que inculto y culto, hermaphrodita eres. 


So great was the disorder of the unrestrained style, 
that the forces of conservative literature were obliged 
to call out the militia of pedantry—always of question- 
able service in esthetic uprisings in spite of its pre- 
judices against novelty and improvement—and further, 
to rely upon satire and lampooning to carry on a sort 
of poetical guerilla warfare. In this manner the con- 
servatives mustered a considerable army from which 
a few names, noted here and there among the rank and 
file, may be of interest. Cristobal Suarez de Figueroa 
(1571-1645?), an envious lawyer-poet whose hatred 
for Gongora was equalled only by his dislike for Cer- 
vantes and Alarcon, has left a tremendous diatribe 
against the meretricious style in his Plaza universal de 
todas ciencias y artes, parte traducida de Toscano y 
parte compuesta por el Doctor Cristobal Suarez de 
Figueroa (1615). The terrible pedant, Francisco de 
Cascales (1570?-1640), in three of his Cartas filolo- 


48 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


gicas calls upon Horace and Aristotle to confound the 
Cordovan Swan; the dilettante Baltasar Mateo Velaz- 
quez, in the fifth conversacién—Del bueno y mal 
lenguage of his El filosofo de Aldea (1625), airs his 
anti-cultist prejudices; and Esteban Manuel parodies 
Gongora’s Soledades in his Eréticas and Amatorias 
(c. 1617); 

The leaders of conservatism, assuredly, were Lope de 
Vega and Francisco de Quevedo. Although the Re- 
puesta de Lope de Vega Carpio attacking gongorism 
was not published until 1621, the dramatist began his 
innuendoes against the exaggerated style as early as 
1617. These were at first very discreet and covert be- 
cause Lope was in mortal dread of the vitriolic insults 
of the Spanish Homer, and consequently, at the same 
time that he satirized the bizarre poetry, he resorted to 
all manner of boot-licking in order to conciliate him. 
Even when Gongora sneered at Lope for engendering 
illegitimates and spewed still fouler bile in his face, the 
final satires and parodies of Lope against gongorism 
seem repressed enough. No restraint, however, char- 
acterizes the interchange of blows between Gdongora 
and Quevedo. Both parties took off their gloves, for 
in those impetuous days few men had acquired the 
polite formality of distinguishing the sin from the 
sinner, and therefore in every quarrel personalities 
came uppermost. Gongora attacks Quevedo’s literary 
views by jeering at his glasses. 


THE EXTENT OF GONGORISM 49 


Con cuidado especial vuestros antojos 
Dicen que quieren traducir al griego 
No aviendo mirado vuestros ojos 
Prestadselos un rato a mi ojo ciego. 
Porque a luz saque ciertos versos floxos, 
I entenderéis qualquier greguesco luego. 
Sonnet [427] 


Quevedo, not to be outdone by courtesy, pens the fol- 
lowing reply: 

Colico diz que tenéis 

Pues por la voca purgais; 

Satirico diz que estais, 

A todos nos dais matraca; 


Descubierto hauéis la caca 
En las coplas que cantais. 


With Gongora’s death, however, Quevedo was forced 
to become less personal, and accordingly turned his 
attention to satirizing the gongoristic movement which 
then had grown to enormous proportions. He ridiculed 
gongoristic poets in his Entremetido, la Duefia y el 
Soplén (1628) and two years later burlesqued Gon- 
gora’s Soledades in the Aguja de navegar cultos con la 
receta de hacer soledades en un dia. But Quevedo’s 
most interesting jibe against gongorism, from its re- 
semblance to Moliére’s satire upon the précieuse, is 
contained in La culta latinaparla, catecisma de vocablos 
para instruir a las mujeres cultas y hembrilatinas 
(1629). There he gives ironic counsel to affected 
women, instructing them how to counterfeit profun- 
dity by using obscure language, and how to attain a 


50 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


show of refinement by resorting to comical periphrases 
for the most homely objects. Obviously Quevedo makes 
a very exaggerated parody of gongorism, but the very 
fact that it is directed against the conversation of the 
weaker sex, shows that the movement was no longer 
confined to the high-sounding strophes of poets, but 
had begun to color even the small talk of the tea table. 

In spite of attacks, gongorism kept on spreading. 
As early as 1635 Angulo notes in his Epistolas satis- 
factorias some thirty gongoristic poets, and the number 
of editions of even the least important ones gives a 
reliable index of the intensity of the craze. Ambrosia 
de la Roca de la Serna (d. 1649), whose obscure Luz y 
alma first saw the light in 1623, to judge from the fact 
that his work appeared last in 1725, managed to impress 
posterity for over a century. Anastasio Pantaleon de 
la Ribera (1600-1629) boldly announces his gongor- 
istic obscurantism in the lines: 

Poeta soy gongorino 
Imitador valeroso 


Del estilo que no entienden 
En este siglo los tontos.4 


Later he seems to have undergone some sort of death- 
bed repentance, for he gave orders to have all his works 
burned after his burial, but in spite of his laudable 
request, five posthumous editions came out within 
thirty-six years. As for the leaders of gongorism, their _ 
works had a correspondingly greater vogue. Eight edi- 
tions of the work of Tassis were published within less 


THE EXTENT OF GONGORISM | BI 


than thirty years, and of Gongora’s poems ten editions 
appeared between 1626 and 1654—more than fifty- 
six editions to date—while a portion of one of his 
poems was translated into Latin in order to immortalize 
it for all posterity. 

As the century wore on, gongorism seemed to in- 
crease rather than diminish, the only decline being in 
the quality, if indeed such a thing can be imagined. 
Gongora, at least, is a true poet, and even in his most 
occult incantations there is an exotic richness of imag- 
ery expressed with a profound harmony that is alto- 
gether wanting in his imitators. GoOngora may be 
compared to Keats, a delirious Keats perhaps, but 
nevertheless a Keats in sensuousness of metaphor and 
cadence. His imitators, on the contrary, were not great 
poets, and in affecting his manner they only caricatured 
his poetical eccentricities, with the result that their 
extraordinary jargonings entirely lack esthetic justifi- 
cation. The Rimas poéticas de Don Juan de Moncayo y 
Guerra (1614-1658), a little nobody with a title, is an 
example of tasteless extravagance. Another piece of 
pompous nonsense, Garcia Salcedo Coronel’s Crystales 
de Helicona (1650), Ticknor aptly describes as “one 
of the worst productions from the school of Gongora.” 
To judge from the voluminous doggerel of Don Fran- 
cisco de la Torre y Sevil (1620?-1681?) one might 
say that he had compiled a complete encyclopedia of 
gongorism. Almost as full of fantastic conceits is the 
Ydeas de Apolo y dignas tareas del ocio cortesano of 


52 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


the rhymester Don Sebastian Ventura de Vergara Sal- 
cedo (1621?-1675), who rose to the high office of 
alcalde of the hamlet of Najera through panegyrizing 
its duke. Three editions of Salcedo’s work (1661, 1663, 
1666) attest its undeserved popularity, as well as the 
unsatisfied appetite of the century for gongorism. Still 
more bizarre is a curious work by Don Gabriel Fer- 
nando de Roxas entitled Noche de invierno, conver- 
sacién sin naypes en varias poesias castellanas (1661), 
an exaggerated burlesque of poems which were al- 
ready too grotesque, the whole being surcharged with 
wretched puns and insolent opinions considered by the 
author as temas jocosos. 

More interesting, perhaps, are some of the closer 
imitations of Gongora’s own manner. Augustin de 
Salazar y Torres (1642-1675) has left among his pro- 
lific and fantastic verses one direct attempt to follow 
in the footsteps of the Spanish Homer. At an early age 
Salazar went to Mexico where he perfected himself in 
a heterogeneous smattering of “sciences” ranging all 
the way from Theology to Astrology. According to 
Cejador y Frauca, Mexico is to be held responsible for 
injecting the virus of gongorism into his system. How- 
ever that may be, Salazar no sooner returned to Spain 
than he showed all the symptoms of this exotic poetical 
malady. Drawing upon his weird learning he wrote the 
Cythara de Apolo (1667), and the most discordant 
tune from his Apollonian zither is a Soledad patterned 
after Gongora’s. Salazar introduces phrases and even 


THE EXTENT OF GONGORISM 53 


whole lines direct from Gongora, embroidering upon 
them his own wretched puns. This he does also in his 
Silvas, where he attempts to be humorous after a 
strange fashion. 


Y aquesto lo colijo 

De que Gongora dijo 

Que el escribia en las purpuras horas 
Que es rosa el alba y rosicler el dia; 
De que se infiere que tal vez comia.5 


In his Fdbulas he imitates the style of Tassis but with 
less happy results, for in spite of that author’s bombast 
there are occasional flashes of brilliant epigram which 
Salazar misses altogether. The failure of the imitator 
to grasp the spirit of the original is particularly notice- 
able in all the approximations of the Spanish Homer’s 
flamboyant style. There is always an elusive quality in 
Gongora’s work, even when most fantastic and obscure, 
which baffles yet continually provokes imitations. In- 
deed so profound an impression had Gongora’s Sole- 
dades made, that half a century later (1718) Salazar’s 
experiment was repeated by José de Leon y Mansilla 
who wrote a Soledad tercera, siguendo las dos que 
dex6 escritas ... D. Luis de Géngora. Leon’s rhet- 
oric has a sort of Johnsonian sonority, because he 
faithfully copies Gongora’s hyperbates, neologisms, 
and tropes; yet, though his poem is quite as bizarre 
and incomprehensible as his master’s, it lacks the vo- 
luptuousness of sound and imagery characteristic of the 
original. There is a poetic ring to Gdngora’s Soledades 


54 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


that can instantly be detected by comparing it with 
Leén’s counterfeit, and this quality alone is enough to 
explain the strange fascination and influence of Gon- 
gora’s exotic poem. Surely, if it is possible to conceive 
of ‘poetry existing apart from all meaning and sense, it 
is to be discovered, if anywhere, in the Soledades of the 
Cordovan. 

During the eighteenth century gongorism shares the 
general literary collapse. After the luxurious excesses 
of the creative age, the eighteenth century dawns as 
dismally as the morning after. Sick, dull, lethargic, and 
frigid, poetry is too impotent to discharge spontaneous 
effusions and consequently must rouse itself with un- 
natural metrical stimulants into a half-hearted simula- 
tion of its earlier virility. Gongorism in particular de- 
generates still more in its resorting to meretricious per- 
versions, not only in style but in subject. Thus the 
devout priest, Juan José de Salazar y Hontiverso (c. 
1734), highly esteemed in the court of Philip V, and 
familiar with the Prince of the Asturias and his brother, 
the Infante don Carlos, writes the edifying décima. 

Nace un fraile que no nace 
Para padre, y con la bulla, 
Apenas de la cogulla 

El santo temor deshace, 
Quando a todas partes hace 
Hipocritas mogigangas, 

Y, en fin, logra pagar mangas, 
Sin pegarsele un desastre; 


Y yo, con ser tan gran sastre, 
No puedo hablar bien de gangas. 


THE EXTENT OF GONGORISM 55 


As for poetic feeling, it was evidently dead already in 
the past century, if a priest like Don José Pérez de 
Montoro (1627-1694) could write in all seriousness of 
the Passion, putting the following irreverence in the 
mouth of Christ: 
_Sosego a Pedro, y le dijo: 
“Amigo, vamos a espacio; 
Que yo sé que antes de mucho 
Te ha de cantar otro gallo.”6 
In the eighteenth century it is in grotesqueness of meta- 
phor that gongorism appears most unregenerate. On one 
occasion, for example, the Chapter of the Cathedral of 
Salamanca gave Gerardo Lobo (1674-1750) the fol- 
lowing strict instructions for making a poem to meas- 
ure: ‘‘God’s factory should be likened to a visible pane- 
gyric of stones, and the marble images of saints adorn- 
ing it should be compared to figures of rhetoric, such as 
hyperbole, involved allegory, personification and pomp.” 
Lobo’s inspiration evidently rose to the occasion, for he 
sings that the cathedral is “the orator of itself,’ possess- 
ing “a Demosthenes in every one of its stones”; the 
nave of the building is the very “synecdoche and me- 
tonomy of art,” its cupola “a sonorous prosopopea,” 
and the whole edifice stands as a “marble catachresis of 
glory.” Lobo also possesses a unique sense of humor. 
Aqui yace en concreto un capitan 
Que en abstracto le dieron la racion: 
Un utensilo, un pre y una inspeccion 


Fué su cirrio, apostema y zaratan 
Manda, pues que la entierren en un pan, 


56 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Por si vive en oliendo el migajén: 
Y no doblen por él, pues la ocasi6n 
De su muerte fué solo el dan, dan, dan? 
Muere en fin, consolado, porque al fin, 
Ya se lleva sabido que es gajé 
Y a que cosa se llama botequin, 
Deja tacitas para dar el te 
Unas gacetas de la Alsacia y Rin, 
Polvos de Chipre y hojas de café.7 


Rhymsters innumerable might be cited who have not 
even the talent of Lobo, engongorizado, to use his own 
words, as he was. At a poetic contest in Murcia in 1727 
over one hundred and fifty poetasters took part, of 
which group scarcely a single name has come down to 
posterity except that of the Padre Isla whose fame, 
fortunately, does not rest upon his poetry. Inasmuch 
as Isla was almost alone in his hatred of the prevailing ~ 
gongorism, it is significant of the taste of the time that 
he was beaten in the contest—beaten by some “im- 
mortal’ rhymester whose verses were still worse than 
Isla’s. Also significant of the time is the great esteem 
in which these juggling poets were then held. Fray Juan 
de la Concepcion, (1702-1753) called by Fitzmaurice- 
Kelly “a gongorist of the straitest sect,” was panegy- 
rized among his contemporaries as: 

Doctisimo fray Juan, monstruo en la ciencia, 
Maravilla y asombro del Parnasso, 
Segundo Lope, nuevo Garcilasso, 
A que el mismo Apolo reverencia.8 
But Apollo has not dealt kindly with this monster of 
wisdom nor yet with his equally illustrious Parnassian, 


THE EXTENT OF GONGORISM ay) 


José Antonio Burtén (b. 1677), who has left for ob- 
livion a poem embracing nearly two thousand octaves 
upon the life of Santa Teresa (1722). For sheer ob- 
scurity, a sonnet of this unintelligible bard deserves to 
be noted, if for no other reason than as a final index of 
the recondite poetry of his age. 


Corrio Francia a la paz arambel, 
Ni oyen a Osuna ni atin a Monteleén; 
No abogara por Francia Lexingtén; 
Mas la Vieja y Ronquillo hacen papel. 

Enganando con visos de oropel, 
No evacua humor francés la evacuaci6n; 
Francia ya dice oui, ya dice non; 

Que siempre fué su genio cascabel. 

No conquista Castilla al portugués, 
Y el catalan se esta siempre tenaz, 

Por irle a Francia en ello su interés. 

Castilla por Felipe pertinaz, 

Y Francia lo hace todo del revés, 
Haciéndole mas guerra con su paz.9 


Since gongorism had such an incredible vogue in 
poetry, it is not surprising to find it invading prose. 
Already we noted that Paravicino introduced the taste 
for sonorous inanities and fantastic metaphors into 
ecclesiastical eloquence. So successful was this preacher, 
that all through the seventeenth century devotional fan- 
faronades continued to grow in favor as well as volume. 
By the time this divine mountebankery reached the 
eighteenth century its inflated rhetoric and ludicrous 
conceits were so extreme as to surpass even the parodies 
of Isla’s Fray Gerundio. One pastor comforted his flock 


58 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


by telling them that the Kingdom of Heaven was an ab- 
solute monarchy where sinners were cast into Hell for 
not paying their debts. Another warned his humble seek- 
ers after light that paradise was ‘a sacred floriligium 
which holy Aganipe irrigates in the pleasant, leafy, celes- 
tial Parnassus of the church.” A third alluded to “The 
divine Adonis, Christ, enamoured of that singular 
Psyche, Mary’; and finally a fourth shepherd spoke to 
his ecclesiastical sheep of the birth of the Saviour as 
“the lamb of God frisking through the fragrant and 
fertile pasturage of the Virgin’s uterus.” 

Written prose is quite as grotesque as the declama- 
tory, although the violent incongruousness of joining 
the solemn with the ridiculous, as it then existed in pul- 
pit oratory, is here altogether lacking. Written and 
spoken prose alike differ from poetry in that both are 
less intense. Consequently, the gongoristic elements are 
also less concentrated, and in prose, moreover, some of 
the particular constituents of the bizarre poetical style 
are wanting. Neologisms, for example, in spite of a few 
notable exceptions, are fairly rare, and in prose hyper- 
bates are almost unknown. On the other hand, there is 
a compensation made by introducing traits into prose 
gongorism which are quite new ; anagrams are occasion- 
ally used, as is also the omission or transposition of cer- 
tain letters. However, since the meretricious taste in 
prose is of interest simply for the light that it throws 
upon the extent and diffusion of gongorism, we shall 


THE EXTENT OF GONGORISM 59 


note only a few examples of the erratic style in that 
province. 

One of the earliest of these is to be found in the work 
of Vasco Diaz de Frexenal who, as éarly as 1547, be- 
gan putting Latin words and constructions into his fan- 
tastic Spanish. A better example, not of Latin hyper- 
bates and neologisms but of garish slang, dialectisms, 
and extraordinary tropes, is the Picara Justina by 
Pérez, written evidently as early as 1575 though not 
committed to print until 1605. Ticknor describes this 
curious work as being ‘‘an affectation of new words and 
singular phrases which do not belong to the genius and 
analogies of the language and which have caused at 
least one Spanish critic to regard Pérez as the first 
author who left the sober and dignified style of the 
elder times and from mere caprice undertook to invent a 
new one.’ Comparable to this is the Poema trdgico 
(really a prose romance) del espaiiol Gerardo y desen- 
gano del amor lacivo (1615) by the unruly picaro Gon- 
zalo de Céspedes y Meneses (1585?-1638) who was 
twice imprisoned and once nearly hanged for an ama- 
_ tory episode. The six editions which this work went 
through in less than forty years attest the merit of its 
passionate and vivid narration, though even when that 
is taken into account, it is remarkable that the book 
could ever have endured, so inflated is its style with 
gongorism. | 

Still more amazing are a series of what we may call 
novels—in which the gongoristic style adopts puerilities 


60 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


such as acrostics, assonances between sentences, and, 
most curious of all, the omission of one of the vowels. 
There seems to have been quite a fad for such works 
about the middle of the seventeenth century, and the 
taste for them lasted well into the eighteenth. The pic- 
aresque author Solorzano has left a novel written with- 
out the letter “I,” and both Francisco de Navarrete y 
Rivera (1641) and Jacinto de Zurita y Haro (1654) 
manifest the same aversion toward the letter “A.” The 
“Boileau of Spain,” Baltasar Gracian carries this device 
to such extremes in his Politico Fernando (1640) that 
it is almost unreadable, but the greatest sinner in this 
respect is Alonso de Alcala y Herrera whose Varios 
efectos de amor had so great a vogue that it went 
through three editions (1641, 1671, 1735). This work 
is a collection of five tales in each of which one of the 
five vowels is omitted, the whole thing being rendered 
still more unintelligible by a smother of amatory sym 
bolism. 7 
The development of gongorism in the prose of the 
eighteenth century offers a parallel to that of the poetry 
of the same period. This prose is like a drama with 
elaborate stage properties but no action, every adventi- 
tious bizarrerie being used that might dazzle the fancy, 
but in spite of the glare nothing ever happens. In the 
fanfaronading of Paravicino there is a certain windy 
vehemence which at times gives to his sermons the ani- 
mation of a spiritual scolding; in the sensuous richness 
of Gongora’s imagery and harmony, there is something 


THE EXTENT OF GONGORISM 61 


of a glamorous enchantment; so likewise in the mere- 
tricious prose of the seventeenth century, as, for ex- 
ample, the Poema trdgico of Céspedes, there is a pas- 
sionate impetuousness which partly sublimates its 
eccentricity. Again, just as the fire and exuberance of 
the Golden Age is missing in the lassitude of eighteenth- 
century poetry, so, too, in its prose there is the same 
dull heaviness. Perhaps the gongorism of eighteenth- 
century prose is, after all, not so very much worse than 
it was in the preceding century, but it seems much more 
hopeless because it lacks the earlier animation. To be 
sure, there is little choice between the artistic dementia 
of the two centuries—none of its productions deserve 
to be housed with sane literature—but between the 
tempestuous ravings of a maniac and the utter drool 
and drivel of an idiot, the first at least has the advan- 
tages of claiming interest. For this reason, therefore, 
nothing could be duller than the gongorism of eight- 
eenth-century prose. Endless meanderings into the laby- 
rinths of classical mythology, dilettante smatterings of 
science, digressions upon philosophy, all jumbled to- 
gether and decorated with grotesque tropes, inflated 
with rhetoric, and told in an incomprehensible language 
—such is the chaos to which gongorism descended in 
that dreary period. 

How long does gongorism last? To this question 
there have been a number of answers, each conjecture 
being based largely upon what its proponent under- 
stands by the term gongorism. One is almost tempted to 


62 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


interpret the variety of opinions by a mathematical 
formula and state that the duration of gongorism in- 
creases inversely as the specificness of its definition. 
Fitzmaurice-Kelly says that gongorism is nothing more 
than bad taste, but with such disembodied vagueness it 
might well be endowed with life everlasting, since bad 
taste is always with us. On the other hand, if we regard 
gongorism as a style made up of a number of cultist 
and conceptist elements, in a mixture of more or less 
constant proportions, a much narrower limit must be 
set to its duration. Gongorism is undoubtedly bad taste, 
but all bad taste certainly is not gongorism. Unmistaka- 
ble examples of the grotesque style do occur far down 
toward the end of the eighteenth century, but as the 
French influence becomes stronger these traits become 
less frequent. Even before the first quarter of the cen- 
tury is passed, the gongoristic style begins to lose its 
cultist elements, its conceptism becomes less pro- 
nounced, and finally as the decades pass there is little 
left but bizarre metaphors and bombast. The flamboy- 
ant manner then offers so little resemblance to the style 
of Géngora and his pleiad that it no longer deserves 
his name. Therefore, since there is such a gradual de- 
cline of gongorism, an attempt to state its duration will 
result in rather categorical limits. Nevertheless, with 
this danger in mind, we may say with some assurance 
that the fantastic style began as a widespread move- 
ment in Spanish literature with Gdngora’s Soledades 


THE EXTENT OF GONGORISM 63 


about 1613 and lasted as such until José de Leon y 
Mansilla, his disciple, wrote a third Soledad in 1718. 

For one whole century, then, this literary plague en- 
dured, sweeping from poetry to prose, from the court 
and pulpit to the street and thence even into the home. 
Legions of promising writers were killed by it, and 
those who volunteered to cure it either fell sick them- 
selves or saw that their ministrations were hopeless. 
Surely, the great rage of gongorism is alone convin- 
cing proof that it was more than a local and isolated 
phenomenon in Spanish literature, and its long duration 
indicates that it was much more than an ephemeral 
illness. There must therefore have been some unhealthy 
condition in the spiritual life of the people to have 
nourished such an epidemic; perhaps, then, gongorism 
may have been not the disease itself but only a symptom 
of a deeper artistic decay which permeated the very 
roots of the artistic culture of the nation. 


ES TOTALMENTE 
ENGONGORIZADO, SENOR. 


IV. GONGORISM IN GONGORA 


INCE AN analysis of gongorism has af- 
forded an understanding of its nature, 
and a survey of the extent and duration 
| has given an assurance of its impor- 

=f} tance, interest naturally centers upon 
the one held responsible for this extraordinary style. 
In the unhappy drama of erratic verse, the poet Gon- 


gora has played an enigmatic role, and while some 
claim he was mad and others that he feigned madness, 
he at least comes down to us as a man whose evil lives 
after him while most of his good is interred with his 
bones. Indeed Gongora’s reputation for poetical heresy 
has brought such anathema upon him that his produc- 
tions are sometimes shunned as if they all were the 
handiwork of the Evil One. Like most intolerant opin- 
ions, this, too, rests upon ignorance, for, if one makes 
even the briefest excursion into Gongora’s poetry one 
cannot fail to discover many of the most enchanting 
lyrics of Spain. Because of this, his contemporary, the 
critic Cascales, said that there were two Gongora’s, 
one an angel of light and one an angel of darkness. For 


[ 64 ] 


THE GONGORISM IN GONGORA 65 


the present study the literary misdeeds of the angel of 
darkness attract more interest, but fairness demands a 
passing recognition of the angel of light since, para- 
doxical as it may seem, there is comparatively little 
gongorism in Gongora. 

So versatile is the style of the poet that the two an- 
gels of Cascales might just as easily be multiplied into 
half a dozen; or we might resort to the jargon of psy- 
chology and state that the angel of light has a split 
personality, each phase of which deserves to be re- 
garded separately from the rest with quite as much 
consideration as the white angel is usually shown by 
setting it apart from contamination with the colored 
one. There is, for example, the foul poet in, 


Que Ileua el sefior Esgueua? 
Io os diré lo que lleua. 


who pokes his nose into the sewerage carried away by 
the Esgueva river, “from the third eye” of the human 
body “according to the laws of digestion.” In contrast 
to this is the mystic who writes the Jetrilla, 


Oueja perdida, ven 
Sobre mis hombros .. . 


A verse from Sir John Bowring’s deft translation of 
this deserves notice if only for its own sake. 


Come, wandering sheep, O come! 
I’ll bind thee to my breast; 

T’ll bear thee to thy home 
And lay thee down to rest. 


» 


66 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


I saw thee stray forlorn, 

And heard thee faintly cry 
And on the tree of scorn, 

For thee I deigned to die— 
What greater proof could I 

Give than to seek the tomb? 
Come wandering sheep, O come! 


Again, there is the cynic of Dineros son calidad, a poem 
quite as clever as Quevedo’s satire upon Don Dinero; 
then there is the lyrist of La mds bella nifia de nuestra 
lugar, a famous poem which Archdeacon Edward Chur- 
ton has Englished not unhappily. Finally, in contrast to 
the stirring ballad writer of the Moorish and Christian 
wars, such as the Servia en Ordn al Rei, praised by 
Salcedo Ruiz for its incomparable valor, we may note 
the exquisite artist of sweet but mournful sonnets. The 
immortal comparison of life to a rose, made some two 
thousand years ago by Catullus, and polished so beauti- 
fully by Ronsard, is brought by Gongora to yet greater 
perfection. 
Aier naciste, i moriras mafiana. 
Para tan breue ser, quien te dio vida? 
Para viuir tan poco estas lucida, 
I para no ser nada estas lozana? 
Si te engafio tu hermosura vana, 
Bien presto la veras desuanecida, 
Porque en tu hermosura esta escondida 
La ocasion de morir muerte temprana. 
Quando te corte la robusta mano, 
Lei de la agricultura permitida, 


Grosero aliento acabara tu suerte. 
No salgas, que te aguarda algun tirano; 


THE GONGORISM IN GONGORA 67 


Dilata tu nacer para tu vida, 
Que anticipas tu ser para tu muerte. 


So famous is this sonnet that it has been translated into 
English three times—by James Young Gibson, by 
Archdeacon Churton, and, best of all, by Sir Richard 
Fanshaw (1608-1666), whose version runs as fol- 
lows: 


4 


Blowne in the Morning, thou shalt fade ere Noone: 
What bootes a Life which in such haste forsakes thee? 
Th’art wondrous frolick being to dye so soone: 

And passing proud a little color makes thee. 

If thee thy brittle beauty so deceives, 

Know then the thing that swells thee is thy bane; 
For the same beauty doth in bloody leaves 
The sentence of thy early death containe. 

Some Clownes course Lungs will poyson thy sweet flow’r 
If by the carelesse Plough thou shall be torne: 

And many Herods lie in waite each how’r 
To murther thee as soon as thou art borne, 

Nay, force thy Bud to blow; Their Tyrant breath, 

Anticipating Life, to hasten death. 


Gongora, in fact, is capable of assuming such a great 
variety of poetical roles that it is a misunderstanding 
of his artistic genius to cast him only as the wearer of 
buskins or, on the other hand, as the furious actor in 
high boots. There are such infinite and imperceptible 
gradations between the poet’s popular manner and his 
gongoristic effusions that we may say that the angel of 
light and the angel of darkness are Siamese twins that 
cannot be separated. 


68 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Nevertheless, since there is such a wide differencé be- 
tween the extremes of Gongora’s distorted and his natu- 
ral manner, some division of the two styles must be 
made, even though arbitrarily. This will in consequence 
enable us to ascertain the quantitative ratios of each 
and, in addition, the dates of their emergence or disap- 
pearance. Therefore, regarding the poet as a sort of 
artistic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, we shall attach to 
the unnatural monster, every abnormal esthetic quality 
which might possibly be regarded as gongoristic, even 
in the slightest degree. This, to be sure, is almost tanta- 
mount to saying that everything that is not natural is 
gongoristic—it thus approaches perilously near Fitz- 
maurice-Kelly’s sweeping definition of gongorism as 
nothing more than bad taste. Still, inasmuch as we have 
described the erratic malady carefully in an earlier 
chapter, the symptoms should be sufficiently well under- 
stood to justify no mistake in diagnosis. Hence, when 
all cases which depart suspiciously from the normal 
condition of healthy poetry are quarantined with gon- 
gorism, we are only taking precautions to avoid the 
possible censure of failing to recognize definite cases of 
the disease in its lighter forms.? 

As to quantity, although the general impression has 
persisted for several centuries that the poetry of the 
Spanish Homer is largely an impenetrable jungle, a few 
critics, like intrepid explorers, had reported that the 
jungle was nothing more than a thicket growing along 
the frontiers of a pleasant country. An accurate survey 


THE GONGORISM IN GONGORA 69 


made of the field of Gongora’s verse corroborates 
such impressions, the result being as follows. Out of 
the total of five hundred poems, only fifty-nine are in 
any degree tainted with the virus of gongorism. But 
since some of the poems in question are only a few 
lines in length while others run up to several thousand, 
a more accurate count has to be made. Accordingly one 
discovers that only 4,885 lines belong to gongoristic 
poems while his total output runs to 24,630. Scarcely 
nineteen per cent, then, of his work is affected by the 
flamboyant style. Even this small ratio would be much 
less had many lines, written in a natural manner, which 
occur scattered here and there through Gongora’s occult 
pieces, been credited as normal. When a poem is dis- 
covered with a discernible odor of gongorism in it, the 
whole thing may be thrown in with the rest of the gon- 
goristic garbage, just as one discards a whole egg that 
appears suspicious without attempting to pick out edi- 
ble portions. 

With this procedure, certainly we cannot be charged 
with underestimating the quantity of gongorism in 
Gongora. One of the most prevalent ideas about the 
poet’s grotesque style is that it is exclusively a product 
of the later period of his career. The reason for this 
impression is not difficult to discover, since Gongora’s 
reputation for obscurity is derived mainly from five 
long poems, the two Soledades, the Panegyrico, the 
Larache, and the Poliphemo, all composed rather late, 
that is, sometime between 1610 and 1613. In contradic- 


70 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


tion to this impression, however, investigation discloses 
the fact that the fantastic style is not solely a trait of 
the poet’s maturity, but that it was formed compara- 
tively early. In 1583, when the bard was twenty-two, 
eleven per cent of the year’s poetical output is gon- 
goristic, and in 1588 it increases to twenty-four per cent. 
Another common conception of Géngora’s work is that 
the latter period of his life is exclusively devoted to 
productions in the exaggerated style. This opinion, how- 
ever, is not unanimous although characteristic of the 
majority. Cejador y Frauca for instance says, “Even 
in the midst of his extravagances Gongora returned 
from time to time to his true, popular, artistic manner.” 
Yet here Cejador is guilty of putting the cart before 
the horse ; it would be more correct to say that the poet 
never abandoned his “true, popular, artistic manner” 
but from time to time felt it incumbent upon himself to 
astonish elegant society with a display of rhetorical fire- 
works. The survey of Géngora’s work reveals that out 
of 113 poems composed between 1610 and 1619, that 
is, during the years when his furious manner was most 
rampant, only twenty-nine are in any degree exagger- 
ated. The ratio sinks almost to insignificance for the rest 
of the poet’s life and proves conclusively that the natural 
style is the poet’s normal manner and that it persists, 
even when occasionally covered with a thin scum of gon- 
gorism, throughout his whole artistic career. One has 
but to read the popular song Aprended, flores, en mi; 
the famous romance, inserted by Calderén in one of his 


THE GONGORISM IN GONGORA vA 


plays, Guarda corderos, Zagala (both poems 1621) ; or 
the satiric décimas written the same year as the terrible 
Soledades, to be convinced that Géngora never aban- 
doned his natural style. 

Finally, the investigation illuminates the obscure, yet 
very important detail, involving the evolution of Gon- 
gora’s bizarre manner. L-P. Thomas, in two brilliant 
critiques,” has attempted to show that nothing worthy 
of the name of gongorism appeared in the work of our 
poet prior to 1609, and furthermore that the change 
from the poet’s simple to his occult style was almost 
an instantaneous transition—a volte-face subite, to use 
his own words. Although Thomas’ startling conclusions 
have been quite generally accepted, there are a few 
critics who question a sudden metamorphosis in the 
style of the Cordovan Swan. Among these, the Spanish 
scholar, Adolfo de Castro, suggests that Gongora’s 
bizarrerie underwent a gradual evolution. “Gongora,”’ 
says he, “did no more than exaggerate the affectations 
already discoverable in his poems published in 1605. 
The Prophet of Cordova resembles those women who 
paint, and who begin with little dabs, but as each day 
their eyes grow accustomed to the paint which glistens 
on their cheeks, each day, also, without noticing it, they 
smear on more color, until with the passing of time 
that which at first enhanced their charms becomes only 
ugliness, ludicrous and repugnant.” 

The results of our survey partly substantiate Castro’s 
conjecture, that is to say, they put the climax to the 


72 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


maturity of Gdngora’s flamboyant manner prior to 
1605, and consequently cast doubt upon Thomas’ extra- 
ordinary denial of the existence of gongorism prior to 
1609. An investigation shows, in brief, that the germ 
of Gongora’s revolting malady is almost congenital, and 
while it incubates progressively, it does so with such 
rapidity and completeness that before 1600, or at most 
1605, every symptom of Géngora’s grotesque poetry 
had fully developed. 

This, however, introduces a new question—the qual- 
ity of the earlier gongorism. We have thus far been so 
fearful of being censured for failing to recognize mild 
cases of “gongoritis,” that our zeal may lead us to be 
suspected of the opposite error, namely of confining to 
the literary pest-house poems which never definitely 
contracted the terrible esthetic disease. Therefore, in 
contradicting a specialist of gongorism so well known 
as L-P. Thomas, it is certainly imperative to produce 
enough early, bona fide gongoristic patients to sub- 
stantiate our claim. Accordingly we shall now turn to 
an examination of the earlier poetry of Gongora. In 
this connection the reader should be advised that every 
example of gongorism described in the first chapter of 
this work has been taken from poems definitely pos- 
terior to 1610, and not only have they been selected 
from the poems regarded as Géngora’s worst, but they 
are in addition all extreme examples of his bizarre style, 
even as it appears in those pieces. Therefore, by com- 
paring the analysis of gongorism, contained in the first 


THE GONGORISM IN GONGORA 73 


chapter, with the following description of the poet’s 
early grotesque style, the reader can form his own 
opinion as to the correctness of our statement that gon- 
gorism was fully matured before 1600-1605. 

One of Gongora’s earliest poems, an ode to a trans- 
lation of the Lusiades of Camoens (1580) is of interest 
because it reveals a number of the traits of the exagger- 
ated style already advanced beyond the incipient stage. 
The vocabulary, in particular, contains a number of odd 
and learned words which Thomas would excuse on the 
ground of being forced by the exigencies of the dactyllic 
rhyme. Still, inasmuch as the poet was at liberty to 
choose any other rhyme, this use of dactyls together 
with the pedantic words which Thomas believes insepa- 
rable from them, shows rather that Gongora very early 
entertained a predilection for the novel and altisonant. 
In this ode we note such words as thdlamo, cdlamo, with 
the learned superlatives, integérrimo, misérrimo, to- 
gether with the classical Hiades, Napeas, Amadriades, 
and Caliope. These are hardly neologisms, to be sure, 
although they are certainly exotic. Besides this, in the 
same poem, there are eleven references to proper names, 
all included within the first twenty-six lines, producing, 
in respect to pedantry, an effect hardly surpassed even 
by the Soledades. Moreover, there occur in this early 
poem the bombast and the jumbled metaphors so char- 
acteristic of the later gongoristic poems. “The warlike 
trumpet of the Castilian pen resounds,” begins the ode, 
“and with its angelic rhyme it exalts to the celestial 


74. GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


bridal bed Hyades, Nyades, and Hamadryads.” “Her- 
rera’s heroics,’ Fitzmaurice-Kelly calls this, and 
Thomas agrees, although a comparison of the two poets 
would show Herrera already far outdistanced. 

Bizarre innovations in language and concept rapidly 
develop in subsequent poems, so that by 1582 Gdngora’s 
style attains a remarkable obscurity. 


Mas luego que cifio sus sienes bellas 
De los varios despojas de su falda, 
(Termino puesto al oro i a la nieve), 
Iurare que lucio mas su guirnalda 
Con ser de flores, la otra ser de estrellas, 
Que la que illustra el cielo en luces nueve.3 
1582 [15] 


In the same year the poet introduces the neologisms, 
tllustrar, purpurea, luciente, and the archaic fructo, 
while we discover also the first bold hyperbate. 


Nuevos conoce oy dia 
Troncos el bosque i piedras la montafia.4 


1582 [25] 53-54 


Within the next three years these hyperbates attain con- 
siderable complexity. 


Sed oi testigos de estas que derrama 
Lagrimas Licio, i de este humilde voto 
Que al rubio Phebo hace, viendo a Cloto 
De su Clori romper la vital trama.5 


1585 [53] 


In addition, grotesque metaphors early become a fea- 
ture of the poet’s style, as may be seen from a short 


THE GONGORISM IN GONGORA 75 


piece in which he describes the brimming eyes of a 
grief-stricken woman as “Neptune’s chamber-pots.” 
Architectonic sentence structure is likewise present in 
Gongora’s verses almost from the beginning. In one 
sonnet, written in a single sentence, he repeats the in- 
terrogative qudl eleven times in the first seven lines, 
besides throwing in three hyperbates and a neologism © 
for good measure. 
Qual del Ganges marfil, o qual de Paro 
Blanco marmol, qual euano luciente, 
Qual ambar rubio o qual oro excelente, 
Qual fina plata o qual cristal tan claro, 
Qual tan menudo aljofar, qual tan caro 
Oriental saphir, qual rubi ardiente, 
O qual en la dichosa edad presente, 


Mano tan docta de escultor tan raro . . .?6 
1583 [34] 


So hastily does Gongora organize his tatterdemalion 
troop of neologisms that he presses into service not only 
words of great ancestry but also those which he finds 
lurking in linguistical hedges and highways. Thus, an 
aged word like alholi marches in the same squad as the 
beardless vulto, ornar, libidinosa, deidad; and lofty, 
learned terms like cothurno and attesorar, rank with 
deformed words and obscenities still wet and stinking 
from the brothels, together with prison, gipsy, and 
Arabic slang: caga, coz, ma, at, quies, can, gigote, chi- 
ribica, chero, xeque, Ala. Not only that but foreign ex- 
pressions with sufficient retinue to form a phrase crowd 
into the native vocabulary of Spain. Thus from Italy 


76 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


comes an tllustri cavaglier and the Romish ioannes me 
fecit, accompanied by a university scholar tendimus in 
latiwm and the Petrarchian Fiamma dal ciel su le tue 
treaze prova. By 1600, Géngora’s practice of introducing 
alien tongues into Spanish reaches a climax in a sonnet 
written in four languages. The first line is Castilian, 
the second Latin, the third Italian, and the fourth Por- 
tuguese, much after the fashion of the famous Proven- 
cal descort written in the late twelfth century by Raim- 
baut de Vaqueiras. This poem of Gdéngora’s deserves 
citation not alone because of its fantastic hodge-podge 
of tongues, but because of its bombast, extraordinary 
tropes, pedantry, and obscurity. It is the worst gon- 
goristic tour de force the poet ever wrote, and by itself 
should be sufficient evidence of the early development 
of his bizarre style. 


Las tablas de el baxel despedacadas 
(Signum naufragij pium et crudele), 
Del tempio sacro con le rotte vele, 
Ficaraon nas paredes penduradas. 
De el tiempo las injurias perdonadas, 
Et Orionis vi nimbrosae stellae 
Racoglio le smarrite pecorele 
Nas ribeiras do Betis espalhadas. 
Voluere a ser pastor, pues marinero 
Quel Dio non vuol, che col suo strale sprona 
Do Austro os assopros e do Oceam as agoas; 
Haciendo al triste son, aunque grossero, 
Di questa canna, gia selvaggia donna, 
Saudade a asferas, e aos penedos magoas.7 
1600 [118] 


THE GONGORISM IN GONGORA I | 


Although Gongora seems at all periods to be free 
from the vicious habit of alliteration he has a number 
of metrical innovations which are quite as bad. Some 
of these belong only to his early period, as for example 
overworking a single rhyme. One poem of his contains 
thirty-five lines ending in atonic -o or -os, a second, 
forty-two in -ote, and a third, fifty-four in -ete. On the 
other hand there are begun in the poet’s early period, 
verbal jingles which continue throughout his artistical 
career. 

Mandadero era el arquero 


Si que era mandadero.® 
1593 [94] 


In the same class with these are ‘‘vice versas,”’ some- 
times sharpened with antithesis or oxymoron. 
Infernales glorias 


Gloriosos infiernos.9 


1584 [50] 


Punning is another common feature developed early in 
Gongora’s word-playing. In a delicate lyric with the 
refrain: 


Clauellina se llama la perra; 
Quien no lo criere, baxese a olella,1° 


the poet makes the inspiring observation, 


Otras huelen por la hoja 
I esta por el ojo huele.11 


1591 [85] 


78 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Usually, however, there is more sound than sense to 
his puns. 


Cruzados hacen cruzados, 
Escudos pintan escudos, 
I tahures mui desnudos 
Con dados ganan Condados; 
Ducados dexan ducados, 
I coronas Magestad, 

Verdad.12 

1601 [126] 


Gongora’s earlier tropes are still more grotesque 
than those of his later period. His use of oxymoron is 
particularly striking in such epithets as “sweet scor- 
pions,” “frozen fire,” “crystal shadows,” “sparks of 
water,” “sweetly sour,” and, in a reference to the sun, 
“black rays.” Some of his metaphors are especially 
ludicrous. He speaks of the “crystal column” of a 
woman's leg and tells us that it rests “on a small pedes- 
tal,”—unusual modesty for once doubtless preventing 
him from describing the volutes at the capital. In one 
poem Gongora assures us that “blind love breathed 
smoke and wept fire”; in another he speaks of “white- 
haired Time combing out the days” (as if they were 
lice). Again, in a sonnet on the crucifixion, by no means 
intended to be humorous, he suggests that Christ never 
could have got cold feet because he was sweating blood. 
“Help me, lady,” the poet cries out in amorous heat, 
“make water on my fire’; and, of a lover lying ex- 
hausted upon the marriage bed, Géngora says “silence 
drinks him with the desired sweat of sleep” because 


39 66 


THE GONGORISM IN GONGORA 79 


he had “won glory upon the pleasant battle field of the 
hymeneal couch.” Equally absurd, too, are some of the 
bard’s references to nature; a holy mountain, for in- 
stance, “breathes light without puking up illumination” ; 
and the Spanish Homer rises to the loftiest poetical 
heights when a waterfall, shot from some dizzy crag, 
is described with ineffable refinement as “a cliff is 
urinating.” i 

Still, nothing can compare with Gongora’s long in- 
volved tropes. “If thou,” he apostrophizes Music in a 
cancion upon some departed lady, “cause her beneath 
this ivy to hear my tears which keep in tune with thy 
harmony, thy sound will raise up the eighth wall of 
Troy once more from her cold ashes.’”’ Even more 
jumbled are the opening metaphors of the poem A un 
tiempo dejaba el sol (1605, 149). For obscure phan- 
tasy, nothing the poet ever wrote can equal it. “The 
time the sun got up from its mattress of the waves, the 
chamber pot of my soul left the rack in its hovel.” 
Gongora means that at daybreak, while the sun was 
rising from the sea, the poet, whose body holds the soul, 
just as a chamber-pot contains less spiritual fluid, left 
the bed in his house, as if he were a chamber-pot being 
drafted into active service. A few lines further on, 
morning, drying up the dew drops, is described as fol- 
lows: “The guts of the lambs which Dawn weeps for 
are used to make sausages out of emeralds and dewy 
pearls.”’ 


80 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


So far in the analysis, we have shown separately — 
the evolution of the individual elements of gongorism, 
and, in our desire to prove that each one of these is 
fully developed in the bard’s early period, we have paid 
less heed to the effect of the whole exaggerated en- 
semble. It should hardly be necessary to observe that 
the various constituents of the style are not isolated; 
the Cordovan Swan jumbles them all together in one 
grand aggregate in his early period just as he does in 
later life. The following sonnet affords excellent evi- 
dence of the full orchestration of most of the instru- 
ments producing the bedlam music of gongorism. In 
this short piece may be heard neologism, hyperbate, 
apostrophe, antithesis, parallel structure, involved sen- 
tences, pun, pedantry, altisonance, obscurity, oxymoron, 
mythological allusions, and revoltingly grotesque meta- 
phors. 


Aier Deidad humana, oi poca tierra; 
Aras aier, oi tumulo, o mortales! 
Plumas aunque de aguilas Reales, 
Plumas son; quien lo ignora, mucho ierra. 
Los huesos que oi este sepulchro encierra, 
A no estar entre aromas Orientales 
Mortales sefias dieran de mortales; 
La razon abra lo que el marmol cierra. 
La Phenix que aier LERMA fue su Arabia 
Es oi entre cenizas vn gusano, 
I de consciencia a la persona sabia. 
Si vna vrca se traga el Oceano, 
Que espera vn baxel luces en la gabia? 
Tome tierra, que es tierra el ser humano.13 


1603 [135] 


THE GONGORISM IN GONGORA 81 


In all of Gongora’s later work it would truly be diff- 
cult to find any fourteen lines with as many or such 
exaggerated gongoristic elements. Written in 1603, the 
sonnet proves with certainty that the flamboyant style 
was fully developed by that date. Moreover, it is even 
possible to assert with confidence that as early as 1600 
the most important traits of the exaggerated manner 
were already formed and that after 1605 there is virtu- 
ally no further growth in the quality of gongorism. 
Only the quantity is increased during the poet’s later 
years, and even then just for a comparatively brief 
period. Perhaps a sketch of part of Gongora’s life will 
help to show how this happened. Sometime after the 
year 1609 (the exact date is disputed) the poet dedi- 
cated a panegyric, written in the occult manner, to 
Lerma. This minister secured for Gongora in 1612 an 
honorary chaplaincy to the king, and the bard conse- 
quently came to the court expecting to receive addi- 
tional favors. He was shrewd enough to realize that 
his novel style might win for him the recognition that 
his truly poetical work failed to obtain. Gongora then 
began to turn out his weird nonsense in thousand-line 
lots, writing the two Soledades and the Poliphemo 
(about 1613) although it should be noted that at the 
same time he also produced a foul comedy, a romance 
and a number of décimas, all composed in the normal 
style. As the poet had hoped, he was verily hailed as 
the messiah of a new gospel of poetry, but unfortu- 
nately for him, a financial kingdom of heaven failed 


82 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


to materialize. Consequently, after starving in great 
honor for some months, he returned to his home in 
Cordova, where, bitter and disillusioned, he resumed 
his natural manner, resorting to the occult style only 
upon rare occasions. 

We may consequently speak of gongorism as an in- 
curable disease which the rash poet contracted from 
some promiscuous muse during his incontinent youth. 
As long as Gongora stayed at home his literary chancres 
escaped public notice, but no sooner did he go to court 
than, under the fatigues and excitements of high so- 
ciety, his esthetical rottenness broke out afresh, and the 
poet was marked forever by Spanish purists as the 
monster who had infected all the degenerate lyrists of 
the nation. However, after leaving court and abstaining 
from its hectic stimulants, the poet regained in the 
rest and quiet of his home something of his normal 
poetical health, and this condition continued with few 
relapses until his death. Thus it may easily be seen that 
the unfortunate poet had suffered all his life, more or 
less, from the effects of a very early indiscretion, and 
while we can trace definitely many of the later cases of 
this artistic disease in other writers to infection spread 
by the poet himself, he should not be censured alto- 
gether, because there already existed literary vices 
which caused his own contagion. Géngora not only 
sins but has been sinned against. In subsequent chapters, 
therefore, we shall conduct a zealous crusade to dis- 


THE GONGORISM IN GONGORA 83 


cover something of the history of the meretricious muse 
who ruined the young poet’s artistical life, together with 
a survey of the social, economic, and intellectual forces 
which made it possible for her to ply her disastrous 
trade. 


V. THE ANCESTORS OF GONGORISM 


+E HAVE seen that the growth of Gongora’s 
own bizarre style underwent, not a volte- 
face subite, but a gradual evolution. It is 
now time to observe that the movement 
which bears his name is also no sudden 
creation of his alone but one with a long history behind 
it. Rhymesters who wrote in an eccentric style before 
the days of Géngora have never been uncommon, but 
their influence upon the main current éf Spanish litera- 
ture, especially during its earlier periods, has been 
slight. Like precocious children, full of superficial bril- 
liance, such poets may indeed be worshipped by an ex- 
clusive circle as prodigies, but only too quickly they find 
themselves ostracized by their more democratic kindred. 
Early Spanish literature was simple almost to the point 
of rudeness. Hence, nice affectations encountered oppo- 
sition throughout the democratic period of language. 
Nevertheless, as the conquering Castilian dialect ex- 
tended its linguistical kingdom to the uttermost confines 
of Spain, the denunciations of the esthetic Catos were 
ignored. Literature increased in richness and began to 


[ 84] 


THE ANCESTORS OF GONGORISM 85 


demand ornate effeminacies until at last, under the lux- 
urious dominion of the Spanish Golden Age, the mer- 
etricious vices of gongorism entirely corrupted the 
virtuous simplicity of Spanish literature. 

The most important examples of early precocious 
poetry are to be discovered in some of the four hundred 
and twenty Cantigas de Santa Maria attributed to Al- 
phonso X (1226-1284). Latinizations of vocabulary, 
jumbled syntax, acrostics, alliteration, split rhymes, 
fantastic conceits, and many other puerile metrical de- 
vices mar these verses. Although written in a Spanish 
capital by, or at least under the direction of, a Spanish 
monarch, their form is quite alien to the traditions of 
Spanish verse. The subjects, to be sure, drawn largely 
from religious folk-lore, are popular enough, but the 
Galician language in which they are written and the 
wearisome metrical tricks and jingling resorted to, 
make the compositions seem to be nothing more than 
transplantations of Provencal affectations. The influ- 
ence of this artificial Galician poetry is almost negligible 
although sporadic evidences of its survival may be dis- 
covered here and there in the various cancioneros of 
fourteenth to sixteenth-century poetry. For example, 
Alfonso Alvarez Villasandino, a belated troubadour, 
occasionally shows himself the most affected of versi- 
fiers. Hyperbates and neologisms, alliterations, puns, 
paradoxes, riddles, personification, allegory, obscure 
references, and grotesque metaphors (the Virgin Mary 
is called ‘‘God’s marriage bed’’) combine to make some 


86 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


of his work more outlandish than that of the Spanish 
Homer. 


Andando cuydando en meu ben cuyde 
Que yo cuydara rren deste cuydar, 
Cuydando, cuytado, como me mate 

E por ende cuydo cuydar en penssar; 
Que sy ovyesse quen de mi cuydasse, 

Lo que non cuydo cuydar cuydaria 

Un tal cuydade, porque me lexasse 

De meu grant cuydade cuydar toda via.! 


The first author who really succeeds in introducing 
the taste for affectation into the commonwealth of 
Spanish letters is Juan de Mena (1411-1456). Before 
his time that democratic art gave it little recognition 
although, occasionally, a few exotic verses showed 
themselves. As early as the Cid there are slight vestiges 
of metrical jingling which become more conscious in 
the later epics. Berceo now and then utters a curious 
line: 


Torné en Aue Eua la madre de Abel2 


and Juan Ruiz is at times faintly reminiscent of Pro- 
vencal virtuosity. By Mena’s time, however, literature 
had grown more sophisticated, and its dislike of banality 
and desire for elegance had prepared it for affectations. 
Mena stands, then, at the juncture of a rather large 
tributary which empties a lot of rubbish into the main 
stream of Spanish poetry. “A true son of Cordova,” 
Fitzmaurice-Kelly observes, “Mena has all the qualities 


THE ANCESTORS OF GONGORISM 87 


of the Cordovan school—the ostentatious embellish- 
ment of his ancestor, Lucan, and the unintelligible pre- 
ciosity of his descendant, Gongora.”’ Truly, a remarka- 
ble analogy does exist between the two poets. Both use 
neologisms, hyperbates, architectonic sentence structure, 
plays upon words, personification, allegory, fantastic 
metaphors, and obscure allusions. The resemblance is 
especially marked in the employment of neologisms, for 
Mena, like Gdongora, culled most of his from the Latin 
(pigro, ficto, osculto, fuscado, corusco, minag, superno), 
with a marked preference for pedantic proparoxytones 
(nubifero, penatifero, armigero, beligero, turbido). On 
the other hand, Mena’s hyperbates are rather rare and 
much less revolutionary than Gongora’s. 

A la moderna volviéndome rueda.3 

Las maritales tragando cenizas.4 

Que non sé fablar quien lo pueda.5 


The older poet, moreover, has a greater predilection for 
paradoxical conceits and plays upon words frequently 
garnished with alliteration. 


Quando vi morir mi vida 
Y vida dar a mis males, 
Cuya vida es despedida 

De quien fué desconoscida 
A mis penas desiguales. 
Entonces bien me pensé, 
Pensé que mi pensamiento 
Tanto fuerte 

No tuviera sobre qué 
Sobre qué darme tormento 
Sobre muerto.® 


88 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Mena’s Laberinto is doubtless well enough known, at 
least by report, to obviate introducing examples of the 
use of personification and allegory. As to the use of 
grotesque tropes,.we may note the poet’s hyperbolic 
praise of his lady when he says that she was so fair that 
even God himself could not create a second like her, 
that her own father could not have begotten her without 
divine aid, and that even the angels in heaven grieve 
that they are not worldlings in order that they might 
contemplate her loveliness. Finally, a fair ensemble of 
Mena’s gongoristic elements may be formed from a 
passage in his Coronacion [1438]. 


Después que el pintor del mundo 
Paro nuestra vida ufana, 
Mostraron rostro jocundo 
Las tres caras de Diana. 

E las cunas clareciera 
Donde Jupiter naciera 
Aquel hijo de Latona, 

En que un tachon de la zona 
Que cifie toda la esfera. | 


Del qual en forma de toro 
Eran sus puntes y goces 
Del copioso tesoro 
Crinado de febras de oro, 
Do Febo moraba entonces. 

Al tiempo que me hallaba 
En una selva muy brava 
De bosques tesalianos 
Ignotos a los humanos, 

Yo que sdlo caminaba.7 


THE ANCESTORS OF GONGORISM 89 


Although Mena’s popularity was tremendous, a long 
time elapses before we encounter another example of 
erratic verse. Indeed so long is the interval that it has 
been asserted that the taste, interrupted by the later 
Italianates, completely died out. This, however, is not 
true; there may be no important example of fantastic 
verse in Spanish poetry for fifty years after Mena died, 
but its presence in the prose of that interval speaks of a 
growing popularity. The Celestina (1499) is full of a 
pedantry undreamed of by Gongora, and its intrusive 
latinization incurred censure even in the sixteenth cen- 
tury. Furthermore, inflated rhetoric and fantastic 
tropes, especially the use of hyperbole, characterize the 
chivalresque romances. In the later novels of this class, 
particularly in the religious romances of chivalry, sub- 
lime bombast, endless allegorizing, obscurity, and gro- 
tesque incongruities all go far along the road to the 
style later called gongorism. In one such novel, for 
example, Christ becomes the valiant, dragon-chopping 
Knight of the Lion, the Twelve Apostles, bragging 
Knights of the Round Table, John the Baptist, the 
elegant Knight of the Desert with a marked penchant 
for oratory, while Lucifer comes in as the Knight of 
the Serpent, half villain, half clown, to make trouble 
for the serious assembly. 

In poetry, however, the next important fantastic 
writer, as we have said, is not felt until half a cen- 
tury later. Juan de Padilla (1468-1522), also one of the 
numerous forgotten bards who won the epithet “the 


900 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Spanish Homer,” deserves mention not so much for 
fantastic language, which ‘is nevertheless affected and 
rhetorical, as for the jumbled pedantry and obscurity 
especially noticeable in his Los doce triumfos de los 
doce Apéstoles (1521). In this poem the reader is 
goaded for nine thousand lines through Hell and Pur- 
gatory by St. Paul who harangues him the while upon 
history, theology, biology, astronomy, demonology, and 
mythology. It is difficult to give the crushing, bewilder- 
ing effect of the whole poem in a short passage, but the 
following is suggestive of his style: 

Por la docena morada fulgente, 

Hacia la parte del Euro lumbroso, 

Vimos el alto Carnero velloso 

Por grados y puntos sobir diligente: 

En medio tenia el ascendente 

El lucido Phebo sotil abrazado 

Partiendo su luz por el cielo estrellado, 


Y claufreando muy subitamente 
Su centro no menos cevil que pasado. 


Some two decades later we find gongorism in pos- 
session of most of the qualities of the exaggerated style 
of the Cordovan Swan. Vasco Diaz de Frexenal (c. 
1547), already mentioned in connection with the spread 
of gongorism in prose, attempts to make over the 
Spanish language according to Latin syntax and vocab- 
ulary. Not only are his neologisms as numerous as 
Gongora’s but they are more bizarre; on the other hand 
his hyperbates, while quite as complex, are not as com- 
mon. However, the most notable quality about Frex- 


THE ANCESTORS OF GONGORISM 91 


enal’s effusive verse is its obscurity, a trait which is 
usually to be traced to his use of conceited periphrases 
and his jumble of pedantic allusions. In the Triumpho 
nuptial vanddlico he sings: 

Al tiempo que el fulminado 

Apolo muy radial 

Entrava en el primer grado 

Do nascio el vello dorado 

En el equinocial : 

Pasado el puerto final 

De la hespérica naci6n 

Su machina mundanal 


Por el curso occidental 
Equitando en Phelegon.® 


As the sixteenth century approaches its later de- 
cades, examples of fantastic verse become more numer- 
ous and more exaggerated. About 1575, if we may rely 
upon the evidence brought forward by Julio Puyol y 
Alonso, the picaresque novel, La picara Justina, was 
written. The garish prose in which it is composed is 
ornamented by fifty jingles which run the gamut of 
poetical dementia. Here all the metrical tricks as prac- 
ticed by Alphonso X, Villasandino, and Mena, are 
carried to even greater extremes. The very titles of 
some of the Justina’s verses explain their puerilities: 
Redondillas de solo dos consonantes, Octava de pies 
cortados, Sonetos de pies agudos al medio y al fim, 
Saphicos y adonicos de consonancia latina, Sonetillo 
de sostenidos, and so on. The sense, or oftener the 


92 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


nonsense, of these verses is always entirely secondary 
to the metrical exigencies. 


mo 


Pusieron en Iustina sus hermanos 
Manos, lengua, y tras esto una demanda; 
Manda el juez pague costos de escriuanos; 
Bafios, juezes (dize), apelo al Almirante, 
Ante el qual Ilamaré a Iustes de Gueuara, 
Bara de manteca i pecho de dimante.1° 


Mena’s tendency to latinize, carried to great length by 
Frexenal, reaches here a climax in macaronic verse in 
which the jargon becomes so absurd as to be suited 
only to the expression of the ludicrous and burlesque. 
This genre of verse was common in the contemporary 
literature of Italy, and in spite of Lope de Vega’s 
assertion of its rarity in Spain, quite a number of ex- 
amples exist. The Picara Justina does not neglect the 
opportunity to show off its accomplishment in this line. 


Ego poeturrius, cabalino fonte potatus, 

Ille ego qui quondam parnasso in monte paciui, 
Iam sum consatus luctas transcendere tejas: 
Iam cantare nolo porracos atque cachetes; etc.11 


Inasmuch as strange verses of this sort had no artis- 
tic justification, time has condemned them to oblivion. 
Because of their ephemeral nature, therefore, compara- 
tively few fragments have come down to us to testify 
to the popularity which they enjoyed. Such bits as do 
survive are usually to be discovered either embedded in 
anthologies or, as in the case of the Justina, in prose 
works which owe their survival to qualities other than 


THE ANCESTORS OF GONGORISM 93 


the merits of their metrical adornments. Another picar- 
esque novel, written in 1602 and published two years 
later, embodies bits of fantastic verse even more 
extreme than those contained in the Justina. This is 
the Viaje entretenido by Augustin de Rojas. Among 
its many loas, described by Cejador y Frauca as “the 
best which have been written in Spanish,” there is one 
composed in praise of the letter “A.” 


. almoradux 
Alhelies, azucenas, 
Achicoria, acelgas, ajos, 
Ajonjoli, alcarabea, 
Anis, arrayan, ajenjos, 
Azahar, alpiste, avena, 
Ampolas, albahaca, etc., etc. 


In another poem the bard airs his classical and mytho- 
logical erudition. 

Que Aiax, Agenor, Europa, 

Belisario, Curcio, Claudio, 

Leonides y Marco Sceva 

Milciades ni Torcuato, 

Antenor y Briareo, 

Busiris, Erine, Ismarios, 

Cygne, Jacinto, Amilceo, etc., etc. 


Some of these curious pieces may be compared to the 
meaningless ditties we occasionally hear upon the 
vaudeville stage. Rojas himself was for a time a fa- 
randulero or strolling player, and his Viaje entretenido 
is crammed with the mountebank’s metrical repertory. 
On the other hand, Rojas has a number of verses which 


94 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


are obvious parodies of the erratic style, showing 
that even before Goéngora had published any of his 
fantastic verses, the weird manner was sufficiently wide- 
spread and popular to attract the jibes of this wander- 
ing picaro. 

Contumelia y puspusura, 

Argonauta y cicatriza, 

Regomello y dinguindayna, 

Cazpotea y sinfonia, 

Magalania y cinfuntunia, 

Zegomella y ciparisa; 

Esta lengua entiende Rios 

Y otros que echan bernadinas. 


Poets loftier and more serious than Rojas also at- 
tempted to soar into the cloudy heavens of pre-gon- 
gorism, so that by the time the Cordovan Swan had 
begun his fledgling gyrations, there were already others 
on the wing above him. Espinosa’s anthology pub- 
lished as late as 1605 under the title of Flores de poetas 
tlustres contains a number of effusive poems written 
considerably earlier. Gongora incidentally has in this 
collection a number of contributions in a tumid style 
although there is no evidence for concluding that his 
work influenced that of the other poetas ilustres. In 
fact the flores may be regarded only as a very fair 
barometer of esthetic conditions in Spain at the close 
of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth 
centuries. Each poet then may be regarded as a sort of 
independent weather vane indicating, according to his 
own sensitiveness, the coming storm of gongorism. 


THE ANCESTORS OF GONGORISM 95 


Two bards particularly afford evidence of the spread 
and growth of a fantastic style anterior to, or at least 
independent of the Spanish Homer. Bartolomé Leo- 
nardo de Argensola voices extraordinary tropes in an 
elegy to San Lorenzo. 


Cual cisne que con ultimos alientos 
Vive y muere cantando a un mismo punto, 
Y en el sepulcro y nido todo junto 
Mas vivos articula los acentos: 

Tal en la dura cama, en fuegos lentos, 
El invicte espafiol, vivo y difunto, 
Levanto este divino contrapunto 
Cercado de tiranos y tormentos.12 


Pedro de Espinosa himself goes to greater excesses in 
a famous sonnet. 


Rompe la niebla de una gruta escura 
Un monstruo Ileno de culebras pardas, 
Y entre sangrientas puntas de alabardas 
Morir mantado con furor procura. 

Mas de la escura horrendo sepultura 
Salen rabiando bramadoras guardas, 
De la noche y Pluton hijas bastardas, 
Que le quitan la vida y la locura. 

Deste vestiglo nacen tres gigantes 
Y destros tres gigantes Doralice, 

Y desta Doralice nace un Bendo. 

Tu, mirOn que esto miras, no te espantes 
Si no lo entiendes; que aunque yo lo hice, 
Asi me ayude que no lo entiendo.13 


So heavy did the fog of the obscure style grow that 
it clouded the very Parnassus of Spain. Lope de Vega, 
who ultimately waged an unsuccessful war against 


06 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


gongorism, has in his earlier work a number of tropes 
quite as fantastic as any uttered by Gongora. A re- 
jected lover in the Arcadia thus describes his fair one: 
Si la frente no era nieve, 
Era cielo de dos arcos, 
Que a la lluvia de mis ojos 
Sefialaban tiempo claro. 
A cuya sombra se vian 
Dos soles bellos y zarcos, 
Zafiros y ricas piedras, 
Destos que lloran retratos ; 
Aunque entonces hizo en ellos 
Dos sellos el amor casto, 
Que fueron espejos mios 
Mas fueron cristales falsos.14 
Lope here is certainly not imitating Gongora. He was 
not even given the permission to publish his Arcadia 
until 1598, and hence he antedates most of Géngora’s 
bizarrerie. Lope has possibly drawn his taste for con- 
ceits from the Italian pastoral of Sannazaro but at 
least these verses may be regarded as additional evi- 
dence of the vast growth of the recondite taste inde- 
pendent of Gongora. Lope again furnishes an even 
better example of the use of grotesque tropes, an ex- 
ample which goes far beyond any of Géngora’s meta- 
phorical abortions. In a hymn to the Virgin Mary, 
written sometime before the end of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, Lope exclaims: 
Divina Ceres, Celestial Maria, 


Diosa del trigo que sembré en tu pecho 
De Dios el dedo que tus campos labra; 


THE ANCESTORS OF GONGORISM 97 


Trigo que en el piedra de la cruz deshecho 
Formo aquel pan de nectar y ambrosia 
Que baja a Dios, de Dios a su palabra.15 


It must be apparent then, from the above examples 
of garish poetry written before Gongora began utter- 
ing his strange verses, that the Cordovan Swan never 
originated the style that bears his name, any more than 
Judge Lynch invented mob violence. The extraordinary 
character of a fraction of his poetry has, however, 
with the irony of fate, set him up as a veritable Abra- 
ham, the founder of a great though outcast race of 
versifiers, whereas he is nothing more than a single 
yet picturesque member of a long line before him. As 
Gongora’s own grotesque poetry came into being 
through a gradual evolution, so likewise, we have seen, 
the erratic effusions of his artistical forebears under- 
went a slow development before they thrust themselves 
into public notice as gongorism. Yet strange as is the 
style of this school and its symbol, Gongora, it is no 
more bizarre than many of the theories that would 
account for it. 


VI. SOME EXPLANATIONS 
OF THE 
ECCENTRIC STYLE 


PUNE y 


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\ LE LOCO CC CRA 


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eB) 


DDISON tells us, in the De Coverley Papers, 

}of a woman who arranged the books in 

her library, not logically according to class 

and subject, but rather, with her deeper 

feminine intuition, on the basis of simi- 
larity in style and color of the bindings. We shall 
soon discover that many of the explanations proposed 
for gongorism are based upon quite as superficial rela- 
tionships. Accordingly, as we set about criticizing the 
classification of this library of theories, we must put 
to one side those which are unscientific and irrelevant, 
however attractive their outward appearances may be, 
and group together those only which possess true con- 
nections. In this chapter, then, we shall confine our 
labor to sorting out three general classes of theories: 
one which involves the influence of earlier Spanish 
authors to explain Géngora’s exaggerated style, some 
which regard gongorism as the result of learned opin- 


[98 ] 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC 99 


- ion, and finally a more or less heterogeneous class 
which attribute it to environmental conditions. 

Proceeding with the first class, we may note that 
more than one Spanish critic, observing that both Juan 
de Mena and Gongora make use of hyperbates and 
neologisms, has concluded that the later poet copied 
perforce from the earlier one. In spite of Mena’s influ- 
ence, however—and forty-eight editions of his work 
before 1582 may surely be regarded as influence— 
there is absolutely no ground for conjecturing that 
Gongora owes anything in particular to him. The in- 
ferred relationship is as unsubstantial as the old bio- 
logical classification of bats as birds because both 
happened to have wings. There is even less justifica- 
tion in blaming Garcilasso de la Vega, the most 
classical of Spanish lyrists, for the Cordovan Swan’s 
discordant song. Yet Adolfo de Castro, culling a 
score of not unusual neologisms and seven scarcely 
noticeable hyperbates from Garcilasso’s work, con- 
cludes that Gongora, observing these innovations, set 
out to perfect Garcilasso’s style by introducing worse 
neologisms and hyperbates. 

With no more reason, Herrera is blamed: “Gon- 
gora,” says Castro, “copied a whole lot of Herrera’s 
phrases. Look at some of the examples, 


(Herrera) ‘The sacred king of rivers’ 
(Géngora) ‘King of other rivers’ ” 


We may note, in passing, that the hyperbole “king of 


100 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


rivers” is not only one most natural for a poet to make, 
but it is very common in classical literature; Vergil, for 
instance, in his Georgics says, “Fluviorum Rex Erid- 
anus.” The other two reminiscences quoted by Castro 
are even more dubious, and may be explained either 
as coincidences or mutual borrowings from a common 
classical source. No more certain are the few neolo- 
gisms which Castro affirms Gdéngora copied from Her- 
rera: crespas ondas, purpureas rosas, tiempo cano, oro 
ardiente, planta voladora. Nevertheless, these neolo- 
gisms by themselves, without exception, were in com- 
mon use before Gongora’s time, some even going back 
as far as the fifteenth century. The fact then that both 
poets use them is no more significant than if they both 
had adopted the same fashion in clothes. Indeed if Gén- 
gora, with his penchant for outlandish and pompous 
words, really had copied Herrera, it is quite surprising 
that he did not appropriate such distinctive words as 
languideza and venustidad. On the other hand, the 
mere fact that Herrera and Gongora combine their 
neologisms in identical phrases, “hoary time,” “crimson 
rose,” “fleet foot,’ “sparkling waves,” and “bright 
gold,” is by no means significant, since such phrases 
have been the trite stock in trade of the poetry of all 
time. Nevertheless, it is from such scant evidence that 
Castro concludes, “Gdéngora without Herrera would 
never have become the Gdéngora of the Pokfema and 
the Soledades.” 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC 101 


Cejador y Frauca holds that Gongora “began by 
imitating Herrera” without stating definitely just what 
he imitated, and L-P. Thomas is hardly more specific, 
although he charges that Gongora approximated Her- 
rera’s “long involved sentences alternating with other 
short ones, Biblical expressions, audacious syntax, ori- 
ental and sometimes obscure metaphors, and finally his 
vocabulary of Latin and Greek words.”’ As to Thomas’ 
first charge, neither Gongora nor Herrera alternate long 
involved sentences with other short ones with sufficient 
frequency to make this trait a definite characteristic of 
their styles, or even to set them apart from a multitude 
of other Spanish writers who use both short and end- 
lessly long periods. The charge of Biblical references 
is even more unfounded, because Herrera uses few and 
Gongora less, and the fact that both poets were mem- 
bers of religious orders should indicate sufficient fa- 
miliarity with the Bible on the part of each to obviate 
the necessity of Gongora’s turning to Herrera in order 
to glean bits of scripture. Furthermore, to call Her- 
rera’s syntax “audacious” is a gross misrepresentation, 
because Herrera’s hyperbates are exceedingly scarce 
and never revolutionary. Similarly, “oriental and some- 
times obscure metaphors” is an unfounded accusation. 
What is an “oriental metaphor” anyway? Something 
rich, sensuous, and colorful? If so, Herrera’s pale, 
anemic tropes have never been East of the esthetic 
Suez, while in regard to their obscurity, which Thomas 
cautiously limits with the adjective “sometimes,” it is 


102 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


impossible to find one metaphor which should occasion 
any difficulty. Finally, laying the blame for Gongora’s 
neologisms upon Herrera is quite unjust. Herrera does 
invent neologisms, to be sure, but they are rarely used 
in his prose and even more rarely in his verse, and then 
only when the Spanish language seems deficient for the 
idea he wishes to express—an emergency which seldom 
occurs. Both in example and precept Herrera is exceed- 
ingly restrained in adopting novelties. Indeed in his 
own day this poet was regarded as conservative. Lope 
de Vega, speaking of gongorism in a letter, exclaims, 
“Restore me to the simplicity of Herrera and Garci- 
lasso.” It is quite impossible to read the verse written 
by the frigid, academic purist and admit the justice of 
the charges of Castro, Cejador, and Thomas. 

There is one other poet, however, who has, in recent 
years, been quite generally accepted as a sort of literary 
John the Baptist to Gongora. This is the young rhyme- 
ster Luis de Carrillo y Sotomayor (1583-1610), whose 
reputation rests upon a school-boyish translation of a 
fragment from Ovid, a few rhetorical sonnets, a longer 
and more stilted poem, the Fdébula de Atis y Galatea, 
and a superficial criticism of poetry, the Libro de la 
erudicién poética, which we shall refer to later, all pub- 
lished together as his Obras, first in 1611 and later in 
1613. In spite of all the erudite press-agenting that 
Carrillo has received for his gongoristic feats, one fin- 
ishes the perusal of his poetry with something akin to 
the emotion one experiences in comparing the campaign 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC 103 


promises of a popular politician with the actual record 
of his office. Carrillo’s language, although altisonant, 
is singularly pure, with few latinizations and even 
fewer hyperbates. On the other hand, he employs all 
the adventitious aids of rhetoric, interrogation, excla- 
mation, apostrophe, and antithesis. Carrillo’s nearest 
approach to gongorism is to be sought in his tropes, 
especially in his plays upon words and conceits. Fitz- 
maurice-Kelly quotes the following: “the proud sea 
bathing the blind forehead of the deaf sky.” But rarely 
does the poet utter anything as extreme as that solitary 
example. Usually his metaphors go no farther than the 


9) 


trite “golden hair,’ “silver neck,’ and “diamond 
breast” which are discoverable in the numerous effu- 
sions of his predecessors. In fact, if Carrillo at his 
worst were compared to the Espinosa of Rompe la 
niebla de una gruta oscura or the Lope of the poem to 
the Virgin, quoted in the last chapter, it would be im- 
possible to treat Carrillo’s claim to gongorism seriously. 

Nevertheless, G. T. Northup, writing in his Intro- 
duction to Spanish Literature, asserts that the poet’s 
language ‘‘can scarcely be called Spanish,” and that 
“latinization, obscurity and subtlety are cultivated to a 
degree hitherto unknown.” The following sonnet is a 
very fair indication of Carrillo’s style. It seems to be 
written in a language which may be called Spanish, 
and if the reader will compare it with the poems, just 
noted, by Lope and Espinosa, he may judge for himself 


104 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


whether “latinization, obscurity and subtlety are culti- 
vated to a degree hitherto unknown.” 


Amor, déjame, amor; queden perdidos 
Tantos dias en ti, por ti gastados; 
Queden, queden suspiros empleados, 
Bienes, amor, por tuyos ya queridos. 

Mis ojos ya los dejo consumidos, 

Y¥ en sus lagrimas proprias anegados ; 
Mis sentidos, oh amor, de ti usurpados, 
Queden por tus injurias mas sentidos. 

Deja que solo el pecho, cual rendido, 
Desnudo salga de su esquivo fuego; 
Perdido quede, amor, ya lo perdido. 

Muévate (no podra), cruel, mi ruego; 
Mas yo sé que te hubiera enternecido 
Si me vieras, amor; mas eres ciego.1 


The theory that Gongora was influenced by Carrillo 
should be settled quite summarily by chronology; Gén- 
gora, as we have seen, developed his flamboyant man- 
ner fully between 1600-1605, and the first edition of 
Carrillo’s Obras did not appear until 1611. There has 
been, however, an effort to show that Carrillo may 
have circulated the manuscript of his poems earlier. 
The following sonnet, written by Géngora a year before 
Carrillo was born, shows the latter already far out- 
distanced : : 


Mientras por competir con tu cabello, 
Oro brufiido al Sol relumbra en vano, 
Mientras con menosprecio en medio el Ilano 
Mira tu blanca frente el lilio bello; 

Mientras a cada labio, por cogello, 
Siguen mas ojos que al clauel temprano, 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC 105 


I mientras triumpha con desden locano 
De el luciente crystal tu gentil cuello; 
Goga cuello, cabello, labio, i frente, 
Antes que lo que fue en tu edad dorada 
Oro, lilio, clauel, crystal luciente, 
No solo en plata o en viola troncada 
Se vuela, mas tu i ello juntamente 
En tierra, en humo, en poluo, en sombra, en nada.? 


If any influence between the two poets must be invoked, 
it should be that of Gongora upon Carrillo. Yet such a 
conjecture would rest upon no more stable basis than 
the pretended influences of the other poets, Mena, 
Garcilasso, and Herrera upon Gongora. If there is any 
conclusion to be drawn from the fact that the poetical 
flights of so many songsters tended toward the same 
direction, it is only this—as the harvest of the Golden 
Age drew to a close, certain subtle premonitions of a 
coming bleak literary season made themselves felt 
among the restless lyrists of the Iberia Peninsula ; then, 
with scarcely an exception, all flew from the traditions _ 
of their native poetry. Gongora, Carrillo, and a flock of 
others were but migrating, in the same direction to be 
sure, but independently, to some exotic country of the 
imagination, far beyond the artistic boundaries of 
Spain. 

Thomas again makes a great deal of the general in- 
fluence of poetical and grammatical theory upon the 
development of gongorism. Renaissance scholars, he 
holds, considered Spanish to be a corrupt and degen- 
erate form of Latin and accordingly recommended the 


106 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


embellishment and rehabilitation of the vulgar speech 
through latinizations of vocabulary and syntax. As a 
result of this, patriotic poets, whose zeal exceeded their 
discretion, filled their verses with neologisms and hy- 
perbates. Against this theory one immediately notes 
that it can explain only two elements of gongorism, the 
latinization of words and of grammar. All its other con- 
stituents, especially the use of fantastic tropes, must 
wait for some other hypothesis. Moreover, the theory, 
as Thomas proposes it, cannot be accepted unless it is 
evident, first, that the feeling of contempt was quite 
general among the erudite, and secondly, that the opin- 
ions of these men of learning influenced Gongora and 
his school. 

Not altogether happy is the choice Thomas makes of 
the grammarians who occasionally refer to Spanish as 
a corrupt tongue. He cites the Didlogo de la lengua of 
Valdés because that author, in speaking of the Spanish 
language, several times uses the word “corrupt.” 
Furthermore, Thomas charges Valdés with advocating 
the borrowing of new words, notwithstanding the fact 
that Valdés condemns the style of the Celestina on 
account of its new latinizations. Yet it is impossible 
that the views of Valdés could have had any influence 
upon the gongorists of the Golden Age because his 
Didlogo, though written sometime about 1535-1536, 
was not printed until 1737. Thomas indeed is forced 
to admit that Valdés ‘does not seem to have been 
known to the wise men of the sixteenth and seventeenth 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC 107 


_ centuries,” but he makes the plea that the grammarian 
“faithfully reflects the opinions of his age.’’ We shall 
see very soon that there were a great number of con- 
temporaries of Valdés who held opposite views, but 
these Thomas dismisses with the comment that they 
were making preuve d’un patriotisme plus intransigeant. 

Thomas cites another authority who speaks of Span- 
ish as “corrupt,” the anonymous author of the Util y 
breve institucion, para aprender los principios y funda- 
mentos de la lengua lspanola. This is a queer little 
hodge-podge grammar, printed in 1556 in Louvain, 
never well known in Spain, and so rare, indeed, that 
Thomas himself could not secure a full copy but had 
to draw his conclusions from a five page extract con- 
tained in Vifiaza’s collection of grammarians, the Bi- 
blioteca histérica de la filologia espanola. The text of 
the anonymous grammar is written in Spanish, French, 
and Italian and in addition contains a passage which to 
all appearance seems to be some odd prose macaronic 
of Latin-Spanish. 

Scribo et supplico rogandote des et respondeas taeles pro- 
bationes de tua eloquentia, loquela et excellentia, cuales scribo 
de Hispania; comparando gentes, nationes et provincias, 


quales manifesto dictando epistolas puras Latinas et Hispanas 
. etc., etc.3 


This passage, Thomas concludes, is proof that Span- 
iards regarded Latin “as their own property and did 
not hesitate at all to make use of its riches.” 


108 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Much more important is Thomas’ citation of Ber- 
nardo de Alderete’s Del origen y principio de la lengua 
castellana, which, however, was not printed until 1606. 
It is quite true that Alderete does twice use the word 
“corrupt” in referring to the Spanish language, but 
he surely makes ample apology at the conclusion of his 
grammar where, after showing that Spanish is a per- 
fect medium for the expression of any science or sub- 
ject, he makes the statement that it is not inferior 
either to Greek or to Latin. Furthermore, Alderete em- 
phatically condemns the use of latinisms, and since he 
was a close friend of Gongora’s, that poet could 
have received little encouragement from him for his 
neologisms. 

Thomas also impresses into service the Discurso 
sobre la lengua castellana (1546) of Ambrosio de 
Morales because that grammarian voices a lament that 
Spanish is no longer used for works of weight and 
merit. This, Thomas believes, is evidence of the dis- 
esteem in which the language was held. Morales is 
further credited with advising a distinction between 
the language of literature and the language of the 
people. In spite of that, it is altogether unfair to credit 
Morales with circulating unfavorable opinions concern- 
ing his own language. The whole tenor of the gram- 
marian’s work is that Spanish is in no wise an inferior 
language but rather one which is capable of the most 
delicate concepts and the loftiest expressions. Never 
does Morales advocate d’eloigner le parler littéraire de 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC 109 


celui du peuple as Thomas affirms. All he says is that in 
Spain there is no care taken to teach the native idiom 
as there was in ancient Greece and Rome and as there 
was at his time in Italy. Consequently the grammarian 
regrets that there was then no difference between the 
speech of the rude country yokels from the remote 
provinces and the courtiers of the imperial city. Never 
does Morales ask for any radical separation of literary 
from popular speech, but only that a reasonable amount 
of attention be devoted to teaching correct Spanish. 
In fact he says, “I do not say that you should shave 
our Castilian language, but that you should wash its 
face. Don’t paint its cheeks but remove the dirt; don’t 
trick it out with brocades and embroideries, but let it 
have a decent enough suit so that it can go about with 
becoming gravity.’’ Morales even goes out of his way 
to censure specifically those persons who attempt to 
introduce neologisms and hyperbates. “Some few asi- 
nine Spaniards,” he says, “talk so that nobody can 
understand them because they want ignorant people to 
think that they are learned.” This is far from being 
propaganda for gongorism. 

Herrera, however, is the main buttress of Thomas’ 
argument. Speaking of the Obras de Garci Lasso con 
anotaciones de Fernando de Herrera, Thomas says, 
“Herrera advised the poet to use discretion and cau- 
tion, observing the laws of analogy and likeness; but in 
stating that ‘it is permissible to conceive innumerable 
tropes,’ that poets may make use of ‘words from every 


110 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


language,’ that ‘poetry is amenable to its own rules and 
jurisdiction without any constraint,’ in saying that 
‘poets speak a different language,’ in striving to make 
it ‘different from the common speech,’ the ‘divine’ and 
‘altisonant’ poet prepared the way for the excesses of 
his followers; he authorized the creation of an entirely 
artificial language wholly distinct from common prose 
and in organic contradiction to the laws of romance 
languages.” 

We shall examine Thomas’ conclusions in the order 
in which he propounds them. First, as to Herrera’s 
“preparing the way for the excesses of his followers,” 
it should be noted that the poet so hedged his theories 
about with provisos that their revolutionary effect is 
altogether vitiated. Herrera practiced just what he 
preached, and his conservative verses are sufficient evi- 
dence to exonerate him from inciting any poet to ex- 
cesses. Moreover, Herrera had no followers. It is sig- 
nificant that Gongora, who heaps praise upon Garcilasso 
and a number of contemporary bards, has never men- 
tioned Herrera. Even the inference is not justified that 
Gongora, the roistering youth who always was averse 
to study, had the patience to wade through Herrera’s 
intricate critical work. Furthermore, in this connection 
Adolphe Coster concludes from certain indications that 
the 1582 edition containing Herrera’s critical views 
was never put on sale and that consequently the 1619 
edition is Herrera’s first appearance. Even if circulated, 
the earlier edition could scarcely have prepared the way 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC lll 


for gongorism, for we have seen that the exaggerated 
style was well developed in the verse of Spain even be- 
fore the seventeenth century. Besides, as Coster ob- 
serves, “The responsibility can hardly be imputed to 
Herrera, for he was only too little known in his own 
life time and was forgotten almost immediately after 
his death.” 

Secondly, Herrera did not “authorize the creation of 
an entirely artificial language wholly distinct from 
prose and in organic contradiction to the laws of ro- 
mance languages.”’ Herrera, emphasizing the demand 
that poetry should be clear, takes special pains to con- 
demn the gongoristic obscurity caused by artificial 
words. “Words are the images of thought and the 
clarity which derives from them should be lucid, fluent, 
free, agreeable and entire; not recondite, not labored, 
not harsh nor jumbled.” Again in discussing the pro- 
priety of speech, Herrera strictly limits the invention 
of neologisms to those cases alone in which the Spanish 
language has no word for the idea which the poet wishes 
to express. Furthermore, Herrera warns the poet that 
such occasions are exceedingly rare, often indeed only 
apparent because the would-be inventor of the neolo- 
gism is ignorant of the resources of his own language. 
Even where the neologism is actually justified, Herrera 
insists that the new word must not be formed in con- 
tradiction to the genius of the language, and that it 
must be harmonious and shall not show affectation. In 
short, while Herrera is an advocate for true poetical 


112 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


liberty, he is a bitter antagonist of poetical anarchy and 
hence jealously guards his poetical constitution by such 
intricate and careful rules that it would be impossi- 
ble for any one who lived up to them to lapse into the 
chaos of gongorism. But, says Thomas, “‘poets see only 
what they want to see in critical works,” an observation 
that might be conversely applied. : 
Finally Thomas invokes Carrillo’s Libro de la erudi- 
clon poética to explain how Gongora arrived at his ab- 
struse style. Briefly considered, Carrillo’s theories are as 
follows: to ennoble the Spanish language through lofty 
latinizations, to eschew clarity and to affect a certain 
amount of obscurity, and, finally, to write only for a 
select and aristocratic class of readers—in short, in 
word and idea to be above the heads of the multitude. 
It must be admitted that Gdéngora’s attitude, in his 
flamboyant style, is quite identical with Carrillo’s, but 
for that matter Juan de Mena had the same ideas a 
century earlier, and the conception of conscious ob- 
scurity in literature was familiar to Juan Manuel who 
gives his reasons for avoiding it in the preface to the 
second part of the Lucanor. The views of Carrillo, then, 
are certainly not novel, though Thomas would make 
them the cause of Gongora’s weird style. However, 
Carrillo’s Libro de la erudicién poética did not appear 
until 1611 and Thomas believes that Géngora wrote 
nothing in his exotic manner before 1609. Accordingly, 
Thomas supposes that Carrillo circulated his Libro in 
manuscript as early as 1607, and that Géngora who, by 


BaPUANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIc 113 


the way, hated the Carrillo family, read it and forthwith 
experienced a wolte-face subite conversion and began 
writing in his strange style. Inasmuch as we know that 
Gongora’s new manner was fully developed about 1600- 
1605, Carrillo’s Libro can have had no influence upon 
him. 

Additional evidence can be furnished to show not 
only that Spanish was not generally regarded as a cor- 
rupt and degenerate tongue but that a considerable feel- 
ing of hostility existed toward the growing menace of 
gongorism. As to the first, the greatest humanist and 
scholar of Spain’s Renaissance, and without doubt the 
most influential one besides, has left a study, the Gra- 
matica castellana, por el Maestro Elio Antonio de Ne- 
brija (1492), which treats the mother tongue with a 
seriousness that almost approaches reverence. Nebrija 
makes numerous comparisons between Spanish and the 
classical languages, resulting altogether to the advantage 
of his native idiom. Yet what is most remarkable in 
this connection is his attitude toward Greek and Latin 
neologisms; such words he condemns as “barbarous.” 

Space will permit the mention of only the names of 
a number of savants who, far from admitting that 
Spanish is a degenerate or corrupt tongue, laud it to 
the skies as only Spaniards can. Francisco Malon de 
Cahide considers the language superior to Greek and 
Latin; Francisco Pedro de la Vega, Cristobal de Fon- 
seca, and Francisco Hernando de Santiago voice equally 
eloquent opinions; while Francisco de Medina outdoes 


114 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


them all in the vehemence of his arguments for the 
superiority of Spanish. Martin de Viziana, in his Libro 
de alabancas d’las lenguas hebrea, griega, latina, cas- 
tellana y valienciana, makes a great many comparisons 
between the two Spanish dialects and the learned lan- 
guages, all redounding to the glory of the former. 
Similarly, throughout the writings of the erudite Span- 
iards of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the 
same admiration for the native idiom is discoverable. 
Some European humanists may have affected a disdain 
for their own languages, but the intense affection of 
Spaniards for their mother tongue ever kept them from 
casting any slur of reproach upon her. 

On the other hand, the same bitter intolerance toward 
linguistical heresy is to be found among the denouncers 
of gongorism as among those passionate churchmen 
who set up the Inquisition for the glory of God. We 
have already noted in an earlier chapter how savagely 
Quevedo attacked gongorism, especially its latiniza- 
tions, in his Culéa latinaparla, and how Jauregui and 
Lope joined in the assault. It is interesting to discover 
that even before Géngora began his mad effusions there 
existed lampooners of affected poetry. In those early 
denunciations of the flamboyant style it is usually the 
metaphorical language rather than latinizations which 
incurs censure. Gregorio Silvestre before the end of the 
sixteenth century wrote in his La vista de Amor: 


El subjeto frio y duro, 
Y el estilo tan obscuro, 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC 115 


Que la dama en quien se emplea 
Duda, por sabia que sea, 
Si es requiebro o si es conjuro.4 


Still earlier, Luis Barahona de Soto (1547-1595) 
penned the following parody of the periphrases of 
gongorism : 


Una razon gallarda, por figura, 
No niego que es virtud de cuando en cuando; 
Mas ir en ellas:simpre no es cordura. 
Decir, por la manana, entonces cuando 
El gran cochero que en las ondas mora 
Va del paropamiso transmontando, 
Y, por verano, al tiempo que el Aurora 
A su morado antigua vuelve, y Febo 
El uno y otro cuerno al Tauro dora, 
Aquestas ni otras tales no repruebo; 
Mas los extremos juzgo por gran vicio, 
Aunque para juez soy muy mancebo.5 


Baltasar del Alcazar (1530-1606), a witty soldier-poet, 
mocks the obscurity of esoteric poetry. 


Haz un soneto que levante el vuelo 
Sobre el Caucaso, monte inaccesible, 
De estilo generoso y apacible 
Lleno de variedad de Cipro y Delo. 

Con perlas, ambar, oro, grana y yelo, 
Nieve quise decir, no fué posible: 
No sea lo esencial inteligible 
Pues no ha de faltarle un Velutelo.® 


Such satirical passages indicate beyond a doubt that 
the growing taste for exotic verse encountered censure 
before Gongora. The democracy of the Spanish people 


116 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


scorned alike the conceits of affected poetry and the 
linguistical amendments of fanatical pedants. Far from 
there being a general impression of the paucity and 
inferiority of the Spanish language, there comes to the 
people throughout the Golden Age a growing realization 
of the power, richness, and perfection of their own 
vernacular—a realization which gave to the nation the 
greatest literature she has ever known. The flotsam and 
jetsam of exoteric verse, and the obstructions of the 
erudite, instead of damming up the main current of 
art in that abundant century, only made it flow the 
swifter. 

Yet at the same time, gongorism was slowly gaining 
like a malignant disease, spreading through the whole 
system of the nation’s culture, ultimately causing its 
artistic death. Critical purgatives and satirical anti- 
toxins only raised its fever and assisted the ravages of 
the sickness. A cure was wanting because no one under- 
stood the mysterious nature of the malady, and now 
that the Golden Age has forever passed away, the eru- 
dite who have conducted a critical autopsy voice an 
amazing diversity of opinion as to the cause of gon- 
gorism. Some hold that the disease was engendered by 
climatic conditions, some that it was the result of 
racial mixture, some that it was produced by unhealthy 
social and political conditions, and finally some would 
excuse Gongora’s own poetical rampages on the ground 
of insanity. 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC 117 


The conception of climate as a determining influence 
upon literary character was a popular hypothesis among 
the philosophers of the eighteenth century; and the 
Italian literary historian, Tiraboschi, resorted to it as 
an explanation for gongorism. Since that time the idea 
has been justly scouted although L-P. Thomas has 
shown himself susceptible to its intrigues. To be sure 
he first denounces the climate hypothesis as “a phantasy 
stripped of all foundation,” but he then proceeds with 
a description of the geographical and meteorological 
conditions of Spain, enticing the reader to admit that it 
should not be illogical to expect a sunny, varied, ex- 
uberant literature from the fertile southern plains of 
Andalusia, and, on the other hand, a satirical literature 
from the frosty mountains of Castile. He further ob- 
serves that Lucan, Seneca, Martial, Juan de Mena, and 
Gongora all come from about the same locality, where- 
upon the reader may infer that there 1s some mias- 
matic condition in that particular spot which engenders 
the cultural malaria of gongorism. 

Quite as baseless is the hypothesis which would ex- 
plain gongorism as the result of racial mixture ; Thomas 
also reserves a paragraph for this. In substance, he ob- 
serves that in the Southern part of Spain there is a 
much higher mixture of Cro-Magnons, Iberians, Celts, 
Carthaginians, Romans, Jews, Goths, and especially 
Arabs, than in the North. Again the reader may deduce 
that in some mysterious way a heterogeneous race must 
produce a literary style made up of a hodge-podge in 


118 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


tropes, vocabulary, and syntax. Just why this racial 
mixture should make itself felt most strongly in the 
literature of the seventeenth century than at any other 
time, Thomas does not say, nor does he attempt to ex- 
plain how the racial mixture could influence only Géon- 
gora’s fantastic style without affecting his more usual 
natural manner. Obviously, the racial hypothesis, as 
well as the meteorological, is founded upon nothing but 
superficial impressions, and like an impressionistic 
painting will not bear close inspection. 

Deserving of more consideration is a theory of the 
historian of Spanish literature of the past century, 
George Ticknor. Attributing gongorism to the censor- 
ship exercised by the Inquisition upon men’s minds and 
speaking of the foibles of gongorism, he says, “that such 
follies should thrive more in Spain than elsewhere was 
natural. The broadest and truest paths to intellectual de- 
velopment were closed; and it was not remarkable that 
men should wander into byways and obscure recesses. 
They were forbidden to struggle openly and honestly 
for truth, and pleased themselves with brilliant follies 
that were at least free from moral mischiefs.” In con- 
sidering this theory let us remember that first of all we 
do not have an impartial account of the Inquisition. 
On one hand, H. C. Lea in his History of the Inquisi- 
tion of Spain charges that institution with all the 
ills the Spanish nation is heir to; on the other, Juan 
Valera-and Orti y Lara claim that the very greatness 
of the Golden Age was largely due to it. Certainly “the 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC 119 


broadest and truest paths to intellectual development”’ 
were hardly closed in Spain, for Menéndez y Pelayo 
has shown that the Spanish Index does not condemn— 
with the exception of a few insignificant details—the 
work of Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Bacon, Spinoza, 
Hobbes, Leibnitz, and many more who were regarded 
in other countries with a far more. suspicious eye. 
Again, one may observe that the Inquisition could not 
stop the circulation of the bitter satires directed against 
the church by churchmen themselves. Indeed, one may 
doubt the efficacy of the church censor just as one may 
question the value of all professional prohibitionists 
and holy-men. Either the satanical perversity of carnal 
man is past redemption, or else the feeling for personal 
liberty is too strong for ecclesiastical coercion; at any 
rate it is almost axiomatic that the surest way to spread 
a gospel is to persecute it, and the most infallible 
method of advertising a dangerous book is to ban it. 
The enormous number of books (the 1681 Index lists 
over 9,000 authors) placed upon the Index is as much 
an indication of the irrepressibility of human endeavor 
as it is of the vigilance of the Inquisition. Stopping a 
printing press has never stopped a nation from think- 
ing, and the hangman has never been able to destroy 
ideas by burning books. Then, in addition, we may 
exonerate the Inquisition from the charge of creating 
a flamboyant style, when we note that in England, 
where no Inquisition existed, there developed a similar 
style which flourished with great luxuriance and colored 


120 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


even the work of Shakespeare. Finally, we may observe 
that at the very time when Géngora was writing his 
“brilliant follies’ Spain produced her literary master- 
pieces. Surely it would be inconsistent to attribute to 
the Inquisition the degeneracy of the lyric and free it 
from contaminating the novel and drama. | 

Quite as fallacious is the theory which attributes gon- 
gorism to the political decadence of Spain. Here, too, 
the advocates of this theory fail to look beyond the 
borders of Spain for verification or disproof. Yet if 
the flamboyant style owes its existence to political de- 
cline in Spain, similar styles in England and France 
should have identical causes; otherwise political de- 
generacy is only coincident or at best concomitant with 
literary decay. Yet during the euphuism of England, 
and the ronsardism of France, the very opposite po- 
litical conditions prevailed. And _ political chaos, far 
from engendering a literary debacle, seems at times 
almost to be a stimulant. Italy’s greatest literature arose 
from political conditions even more ruinous than those 
attending Spanish gongorism. During the feuds of the 
Guelphs and the Ghibellines the Divine Comedy was 
born, and the classics of Italy’s sixteenth century came 
out of a political environment little better than anarchy. 
Here, too, as we have just observed, the effusions of 
Gongora were contemporaneous with the classics of the 
drama and the novel. The fact, then, that Spain’s po- 
litical power was going to the winds is altogether 
irrelevant to the phenomena of gongorism. 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC 121 


A corollary of the political decadence hypothesis at- 
tempts to see in gongorism the result of a moral col- 
lapse brought about by a combination of political weak- 
ness and the influx of vast wealth from Spain’s Amer- 
ican colonies. Here once more we must object that the 
great novel of Cervantes and the lyrics of Gongora 
were contemporaneous, and if moral degeneracy is to 
affect literature there is no reason why it should choose 
one genre and reject the other. Again, if moral laxity 
and magnificence induce literary collapse, one cannot 
help wondering how Moliere and Racine could have 
produced such great work. Surely the court of the Roz 
Soleil was no whit less opulent or corrupt than that 
of the Spanish kings ; and Moliére and Racine, protégés 
of the king, were certainly in better financial condition 
than Gongora, who spent all his bitter life in poverty. 

The statement that during the Golden Age there was 
great moral corruption, as well as the assertion that 
Spain was flooded with wealth, deserves to be taken 
with some suspicion. First of all, apart from the almost 
fanatical piety and austerity which have always char- 
acterized the Spanish, it should be remembered that 
during the seventeenth century the power and influence 
of the church were exceptionally strong, and at the same 
time the opportunity for moral excesses was no greater 
than it had ever been, nor was it as great even as it is 
today. Much of the opinion of moral turpitude of the 
seventeenth century has been gleaned from the pic- 
aresque novels, but it is quite as risky to read the na- 


122 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


tion’s morals from these as it would be to draw an 
opposite picture from the chivalresque romances which 
had an even greater vogue. Amorous intrigues, of 
course, existed, as well as cape-and-sword bloodlettings, 
sensational robberies and melodramatic revenges, but let 
us beware of taking them too seriously as moral barom- 
eters of the age. Secondly, in regard to the financial 
opulence of the Golden Age, it was no help to the nation 
that wealth was pouring in from the mines of Mexico 
and the Andes when it was being spent still faster on 
ruinous wars. In one year alone (1595), thirty-five mil- 
lion ducats in gold came to Seville, but at that very time 
the government was so abjectly poor that officers were 
appointed to go about from house to house accompanied 
by the priest of each parish to beg alms for the king. 
“The master of the New World,” writes Hume, “with 
its countless treasures, had no money to pay for his 
household servants, or to set forth the meals for his 
own table.” Surely, if the monarch of the land were so 
poor as that, it cannot reasonably be expected that 
humble poets lived in an atmosphere of enervating 
Oriental opulence. 

A final theory seeks to discover insanity as the cause 
of Gongora’s exotic style. The basis for this rests upon 
the following facts. In 1590 while on a mission for 
his order, Géngora fell ill and was forced to remain in 
Madrid for a month. The precise character of the 
illness is unknown, but inasmuch as the poet suffered 
later from a cerebral attack it is quite convenient for 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC 123 


the protagonists of the insanity hypothesis to attribute 
every sickness which the young cleric might contract in 
' those lecherous, unsanitary times, to some mental de- 
rangement. Later—that is, sometime between 1593- 
1594—Gongora fell seriously ill and for three days re- 
mained in a state of coma so complete that it is said 
that his friends believed him dead. This attack seems 
to have passed as rapidly as it came, leaving no ill con- 
sequences, since the next mention of trouble does not 
come until sixteen years later. From another mission 
in 1609 Géngora returned out of the north of Spain 
in bad health. After a brief recovery he suffered a 
slight relapse in 1610 and finally, while accompanying 
the king and his retinue on a trip through Aragon in 
1626, he fell sick and was forced to return to Cordova. 
There is absolutely no ground for concluding that this 
last illness was an insanity. Indeed, with reason Fitz- 
maurice-Kelly says in his History of Spanish Litera- 
ture, “The story that he died insane is a gross exag- 
geration.”’ Nevertheless, Thomas, endeavoring to base 
as much as possible upon a legend, writes, “Seized with 
violent headaches and total unconsciousness, he lost his 
reason and died the twenty-third of May, 1627.” 

It is of the 1609-1610 sickness that Thomas makes 
the most, because it is during those years that he believes 
that Gdongora experienced his volte-face subite con- 
version to gongorism. “Is it any wonder,” he asks, “that 
his tendencies toward a recondite style should be ac- 
centuated first suddenly and then progressively under 


124 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


the influence of the sufferings of his disordered brain?” 
We have seen, however, that Géngora’s “tendencies to- 
ward a recondite style’ were not “accentuated sud- 
denly” but rather underwent a gradual evolution, reach- 
ing their full development in 1600-1605. For this reason 
Thomas’ desperate but unsuccessful effort to codrdinate 
Gongora’s Panegyrico and Larache with this sickness 
need not engage our attention. It is suggestive, more- 
over, to observe that far from the 1609-1610 sickness 
being mental, as Thomas tacitly infers, it is quite 
probable that it was altogether physical; an indisposi- 
tion caused, if we may read anything out of the O mon- 
tanas de Galicia, which describes the country he then 
visited, either by abominable food, unsanitary living 
conditions, or what is even more likely, by unsanitary 
peasant girls whom the lecherous-minded priest de- 
scribes elsewhere with great gusto as Mozas rollizas de 
anchos culiseos. 

Thomas denounces the Larache in no uncertain 
terms. “I refuse to believe that the Ode on the Capture 
of Larache is the work of a man in full possession of 
his mental faculties. It seems to be the work of a faker 
or a fool” (fumiste ou d’un fou). Yet Thomas is in- 
consistent in his reasoning, because if Goéngora had to 
be a fumiste or a fou to write the Larache, he should 
also have been much more of a fumiste or fou to write 
the Soledades which are infinitely worse. But inasmuch 
as there is no mention of Géngora’s losing full posses- 
sion of his mental faculties in 1613 when these poems 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC 125 


were supposedly written, Thomas discreetly refrains 
from forcing the Soledades to testify to the insanity 
theory. Nevertheless, if the poet had to be crazy to write 
one gongoristic effusion it is only logical to infer that he 
was proportionately insane when he wrote others. Inas- 
much as every year between 1582 and 1622 is marked, 
with few exceptions, with some fantastic poem, we must 
conclude that from the poet’s twenty-first until his 
sixty-first year he was more or less insane. If this 
were true, the religious order that intrusted him not 
only with missions of great importance but also with 
its money, was taking a considerable risk. Furthermore, 
one should expect some especially pronounced evidences 
of poetical dementia when we know that Gongora was 
actually sick. Yet it is surprising to find that during that 
timé he produced relatively few bizarre poems, while on 
the other hand, in the years that his most stupendous 
gongoristic effusions occurred there is no record of any 
sickness. 

Even granting that the poet were sufficiently insane 
between 1582 and 1622 to produce gongoristic verses, 
how is it possible to explain all the poems, five times 
as numerous, which were written during the same 
period in the normal style? Are we to suppose that 
Gongora’s strange insanity seized him only when he 
wrote silvas and sonnets and left him when he wrote 
romances and décimas? Again why should this dark 
cloud descend upon him when he wrote panegyrics to 
his friends and disappear when he undertook to satirize 


126 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


his enemies? If Géngora could have been mad when 
he wrote the Soledades he certainly regained full pos- 
session of his mental faculties in the clear, venomous 
satire, A los que dicen contra las Soledades, written 
about the same time. Are we to conclude from this that 
he was defending during his sanity what he had written 
during insanity? Moreover, if Thomas believes that 
Gongora was not in full possession of his mental facul- 
ties when he wrote the Larache, why should he not also 
suspect the mental equilibrium of the king and court 
who applauded him? What reason is there to suppose 
that an artist is unbalanced who has the acumen to sup- 
ply the demand that a silly public creates for crazy 
fads? Truly, if, Gdngora were mad there must have 
been some method in his madness because, as we have 
already observed, his poetical extravagances alpne 
brought him the recognition that his works of genuine 
merit failed to obtain. 

Evidently the origin of gongorism lies neither in the 
headaches of the Spanish Homer nor in the environ- 
mental conditions of the land in which he lived; it is 
not due to the influence of pedants, nor is Gongora him- 
self an imitator of earlier authors who wrote in an ex- 
aggerated style. Almost without exception the theories 
we have examined have regarded gongorism as an iso- 
lated phenomenon peculiar to the literature of Spain. 
We have noted here and there already that movements 
similar to gongorism exist in the literatures of other 
countries; perhaps if we employ the comparative 


EXPLANATIONS OF THE ECCENTRIC 12/7 


method and investigate the phenomenon as it appears 
elsewhere, we shall gain a profounder understanding 


of the meaning and the seriousness of this artistic 


psychopathy. 


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a * 
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ey 
= 


ime 


Uniti, x oll 


iN 
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ey 


wl 


AD OCULUM ORACULI DELPHICI CAECUM CONSULTANDUM 


VII. MERETRICIOUS VERSE IN OTHER 
LITERATURES 


ANY OTHER literatures besides that of 
Spain furnish in some period of their 
evolution very close parallels to gon- 
gorism. In some instances the similarity 
is so astonishing that it is not difficult to 
understand why the poetry of those epochs has been 
suggested as a cause of the Spanish extravagance. In- 
deed, such a possibility becomes almost a conviction 
when some general influence between the literatures in 
question can be shown. Nevertheless, the fallacy of this 
conclusion should be quite evident, for it is analogous 
to imputing the senility of one individual to that of 
another, and, when the two persons have been friends, 
drawing the conclusion that the mental meanderings of 
the elder have caused those of the younger. The close 
likenesses to gongorism in other literatures are quite 
independent of one another except that all may be ulti- 
mately traced to a single set of underlying principles. 
At the risk of being censured for proving the obvi- 
ous, we shall show first of all, by describing a remarka- 


[ 128] 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 129 


ble analogy to gongorism in a literature not even re- 
motely related to the Spanish, that resemblances are in 
themselves no proof of influence. Our only justification 
for so doing is the persistence of a stubborn tendency 
to impute as causes of gongorism similar meretricious 
diseases in other literatures. Accordingly, perhaps the 
best isolated example of fantastic poetry is to be found 
in the compositions of the Icelandic Scalds since they 
contain many of the cultist and conceptist elements 
characteristic of gongorism. Here, exactly as in Span- 
ish, exoteric virtuosity shows itself in the use of neolo- 
gisms and hyperbates while esoteric subtlety of idea 
likewise comes out in a predilection for recondite tropes 
and allusions. Even in the neologisms themselves the 
resemblance to gongorism goes further, because just as 
the Spanish Homer in his latinizations of vocabulary 
went back to the ancient source of the Spanish lan- 
guage, so, too, the Scalds drew from the archaic re- 
sources of Old Norse. Icelandic possesses an unusual 
number of curious and obsolete words which give to its 
Scaldic verses something of the piebald effect attained 
by English poetasters through introducing Spenser- 
esque archaisms. In the strange Scandinavian rhymes, 
however, the result is more noticeable, inasmuch as the 
Scalds made a special cult of neologisms already unin- 
telligible to the people at large. Thus the very medium 
of their utterances is more artificial, mannered, and 
obscure than the language sometimes affected by Gon- 
gora. 


130 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


More extraordinary than any hyperbates found in 
Spanish are some of the fantastic metrical arrange- 
ments of the Scalds. Great license is taken with word 
order, a stanza of two parisonic antithetical sentences 
being written by taking first a word of one sentence 
and then one of another, alternating in this way until 
the two periods are finished. This naturally results in a 
series of enigmatic verses which can be deciphered only 
when the key to the word pattern is known. Thus the 
two sentences: Hakt hamdi geirum gotna (Hake con- 
quered the men with weapons), and Kraki framdi eirum 
flotna (Krake strengthened the men with peace), may 
be written in a stanza as follows, reading from left to 
right as in English: 
Haki Kraki 
Hamdi framdi 


Geirum eirum 
Gotna flotna. 


Grotesque tropes, without doubt the most outstand- 
ing single characteristic of gongorism, are developed to 
great lengths in the complicated metaphors of the 
Scalds. Often the quality or attribute of an object is 
used instead of the object, as for example, “splendor” 
for “gold.” In addition to this, the exaggerated pedan- 
try and love of classical references so marked in the 
style of Gongora are matched by the references of these 
Icelandic poets to Norse history and mythology. 
“Thus,” writes Rasmus Anderson, in his History of 
the Literature of the Scandinavian North, “we find, for 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 131 


instance, that gold is called Freyja’s tears (referring 
to the myth in which Freyja is said to have wept golden 
tears when she was deserted by her husband Od) ; the 
gallows were called Hagbard’s steed (referring to the 
legend according to which the young Norwegian hero, 
the lover of the Danish princess, was hung) ; that a 
warrior is called the wielder of the sword; a sword, the 
fire of the shield; a shield, the war-roof ; so that instead 
of warrior we may say, the wielder of the fire of the 
war-roof. The interpretation becomes still more difficult 
from the fact that when two things have the same 
name, then a metaphor which stands for one can repre- 
sent the other as well. Thus the word lina means both a 
ship and a shield, and consequently every metaphor used 
for a shield may be applied to a ship and vice versa. 
How far this may be carried, is illustrated by a Scald 
who, instead of the word floki (flake), used the word 
tre (tree). His right to do so appears from the follow- 
ing analysis: instead of floki one may say sky (cloud) ; 
instead of sky, hrafen (raven) ; instead of hrafen, hestr 
(steed); instead of hestr, marr (mare); instead of 
marr, saer (sea); instead of saer, vithir (ocean) ; in- 
stead of withir, vithr (wood) ; instead of withr, beim 
(bone) ; instead of bein, teinn (twig) ; and instead of 
teinn, tre.” 

An illustration of the uncouth piling up of metaphors 
may be seen in the following literal translation of the 
Icelandic Scald, Gunlaug Ormstunga. “The moon of 
the eyebrows of the white-clad goddess of the onion 


132 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


soup shone beaming on me as that of a falcon from 
the clear heaven of the eyelids of the goddess of the 
gold-ring causes since then the unhappiness of me and 
the goddess of the ring.” To understand this jargon 
we must first be advised that the moon of the eyebrows 
is the eye; the goddess of the onion soup (that is to 
say the one who prepares that broth), the goddess of the 
ring, and the goddess of the gold-ring are all peri- 
phrases for woman; the moon of the eyelids is the eye 
while the heaven of the eyebrows is the forehead. With- 
out the solution to these tropes it may be seen that the 
obscurity of such Scaldic poetry, especially when fur- 
ther distorted by the addition of neologisms and 
hyperbates, exceeds the darkest passage of Géngora’s 
Soledades. 

It would not be difficult to multiply examples of this 
abstruse writing in other literatures unassociated with 
the Spanish. The Bélre filed school of Celtic poets plays 
essentially the same part in the literature of the Irish 
bards as the Scaldic does in Icelandic. Similar, too, are 
its neologisms consisting of archaisms and strange com- 
pounds, and hyperbates formed by syntactical arrange- 
ments contrary to the genius of the language. Obscure 
references, mythological allusions, and intricate tropes 
make the resemblance to gongorism as startling as if it 
were a conscious imitation. As a matter of fact, the 
further afield one goes in the search for examples of 
this curious literature the more pronounced seem its 
analogies to gongorism. In some African negro tribes, 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 133 


where poetry, such as it is, appertains to the profession 
of the seer and conjurer, great pains are taken in the 
training of those who are to become the future tribal 
poet-sorcerers. Words which are taboo to the whole 
tribe become the particular property of the bard who 
transmits them to his successor, jealously guarding their 
meanings from the uninitiated. Such expressions then 
are truly neologisms, unknown to the tribe at large, the 
very utterance of which is even forbidden. In addition, 
an equivalent to hyperbates may be discovered in the 
repetitions and the splitting of parts of a compound 
word during the chanting, such mutilations not being 
permissible to the usage of spoken prose. Finally, in- 
credible as it may seem, there is a counterpart to the 
complicated metaphors of gongorism in the odd peri- 
phrases of this poetry. The names of certain animals 
and spirits are taboo to the tribe, and consequently to 
speak of them the bard must resort to symbols, shy half- 
references and circumlocutions. Even the motive behind 
all this outlandish jargoning is identical to that which 
partly contributed to the production of gongorism: the 
desire of some more or less conscious charlatan to 
astound his more gullible brethren by a display of occult 
hocus-pocus. Moreover, it owes its success to a sort of 
inferiority complex inherent in the mass of mankind: to 
regard whatever they cannot understand as above in- 
stead of below them, to expect super-profundity from 
the most abject nonsense. 


134 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Since we have seen that phenomena similar to gon- 
gorism may exist in literatures isolated from the Span- 
ish, we shall do well to be very chary of jumping to 
any conclusions of influence even when the literatures 
are proximate, if the major part of the evidence rests 
only upon resemblances. Arabic poetry affords an ex- 
ample of just such an inference because it contains 
‘many meretricious compositions quite like those of gon- 
gorism and because seven centuries of close contact 
between Spaniards and Arabs make the question of 
influence not improbable. 

Arabic literature is peculiar in that it is almost wholly 
lyrical, and because after the Hegira the whole output 
of its poetry consists of nothing more than a slavish 
imitation of models produced during the classical period 
(500-622 A. D.). The result is intense formalism in 
subject and treatment. As early even as the sixth cen- 
tury the poet “Antara complains that his predecessors 
have left him nothing new to say, and René Basset (La 
poésie arabe anté-tslamesque) writes, “Never did the 
rule of the three unities weigh so heavily upon the 
[French] tragedy of the seventeenth century as the 
superannuated forms of the age of ignorance upon the 
Arabian authors of the Khalifat.” The vocabulary, syn- 
tax, verse forms, and subjects of this pre-Islamitic lyric 
are still in force in the poetry of today. All that is left 
to the poet then is the embellishment of old models by 
preciosities. Ahmed Deif (Essai sur le lyrisme et la criti- 
que chez les Arabes) describes the poetry created under 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 135 


such conditions as nothing more than “a pastime, a 
skillful game, a fine exercise of verbal gymnastics.” 

Naturally, such restrictions would confine the poet’s 
imaginative power to the conception of grotesque meta- 
phors. “My head,” sings the poet Ibn El Tatharya, 
“becoming bald, is like the desert inhabited by the eagle, 
but after it gets to be entirely bald, the eagle (pre- 
sumably a “poetic” metaphor for a louse) will go 
away.” Imr-oul-Qais in his Moallaquat compares the 
Sahara Desert to the empty belly of an ass, and launches 
into a panegyric of his lady whose fingers, he says, are 
like insects while her breasts are like two ostrich eggs, 
shining like polished mirrors. Later poets exaggerate 
this bizarrerie even more, as might be guessed from 
Tha’alibi’s criticism of Mutanabbi (915-965), one of 
the greatest Arabian poets. ‘He strings pearls and 
bricks together. . . . While he moulds the most splen- 
did ornament, and threads the loveliest necklace, and 
weaves the most exquisite stuff of mingled hues, and 
paces superbly in a garden of roses, suddenly he will 
throw in a verse or two verses disfigured by far-fetched 
metaphors or by obscure language and confused thought, 
or by extravagant affectation and excessive profundity, 
or by unbounded and absurd exaggeration, or by vulgar 
and commonplace diction, or by pedantry and grotesque- 
ness resulting from the use of unfamiliar words.” 

This criticism might well have been directed against 
Géngora, so close is the resemblance between him and 
Mutanabbi, and yet the possibility of an Arabic influ- 


136 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


ence upon the Spanish Homer is doubtful. Géngora cer- 
tainly was ignorant of Arabic; the last of the Moors 
had been expelled before he had written anything as- 
tonishingly grotesque, and even indirectly there is little 
in his style that must necessarily be sought for in an 
alien literature. Indubitable points of contact between 
the meretricious poetry of Arab and Spaniard are alto- 
gether wanting ; indeed the attempt to lay gongorism in 
part, or as a whole, to a Semitic source seems clearly to 
be the result of fitting facts to a theory, a case of link- 
ing analogies rather than relating each to a common 
cause. 

Provengal literature affords a much closer parallel 
to gongorism in the productions of its Trobar clus, an 
affected school of poets which grew up about the middle 
of the twelfth century and lasted approximately a hun- 
dred years. Beginning with Marcabrun, we note the in- 
troduction of obscure tropes, excessive personification, 
mannered syntax, and some plays upon words. Later, 
Peire d’Alvernhe adds bombast, greater grotesqueness 
and obscurity of trope and alliteration. Additional traits 
are contributed by other poets: Rambaut d’Aurenga 
brings in the taste for puns and riddles; Raimon de 
Tolosa, exotic words; Rambaut de Vaqueiras mixes up 
five languages in a composition called with much justice 
a Descort; and Aimeric de Belenoi carries alliteration 
to excessive lengths. Yet it is Arnaut Daniel (c. 1180- 
1200), called by Balaguer the “Géngora of the Trouba- 
dours,” who becomes the most extravagant of all. This 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 137 


poet uses bookish words, neologisms, and bizarre con- 
structions—some eighty words unknown to his com- 
peers, and forty more with unheard-of metaphorical 
meanings have been counted, and his syntax is often so 
jumbled as to be almost undecipherable. Punning is 
habitual, while antithesis, personification, allegory, 
paradox, alliteration, and above all, eccentric figures of 
speech, contribute to making his style every bit as fan- 
tastic as Gongora’s. 


En breu brisaral temps braus, 

Eill bisa busina els brancs 

Qui s’entresseignon trastuich 

De sobreclaus rams de fuoilla; 

Car noi chanta auzels ni piula 
M’enseign’ Amors qu’ieu fassa adonc 
Chan que non er segons ni tertz 

Ans prims d’afrancar cor agre. 


Amors es de pretz la claus 

E de proessa us estancs 

Don naisson tuich li bon fruich, 
S’es qui leialmen los cuoilla; 
Q’un non delis gels ni niula 
Mentre ques noiris el bon tronc; 
Mas sil romp trefans ni culvertz 
Peris tro leials lo sagre.1 


Because of the close likeness between the Trobar clus 
and gongorism, the mediaeval preciosity has been held 
responsible for the modern. Supporting this hypothesis 
is the fact that Provengal literature actually came into 
contact with Spanish, on the east through Catalonia, 
on the northwest through Galicia, and furthermore, as 


138 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


we have noted earlier, traits of the meretricious style 
common to the Troubadours are to be found in the 
work of Mena and occasional earlier writers. Against 
the possibility of such an influence it may be observed 
that the early occurrence of Provengal artifice both in 
Catalan and Galician never really affected the main 
stream of Spanish poetry, and by the time Mena began 
writing, Provengal literature was virtually dead. Not- 
withstanding that certain metrical devices are present in 
the poetry of Mena and the compositions of the Trobar 
clus, such are also common to other literatures quite 
isolated from them. Indeed the various technicalities 
of artificial verse are almost as elemental as the rhyming 
instinct itself. When a degenerate bard, no matter of 
what country, starts upon a career toward virtuosity, he 
develops, without apprenticeship and instruction, the 
same affected meretricious gestures and vices that have 
characterized the abnormal rhymesters of all time. 
Another analogy to gongorism is to be found in the 
poetry of the Latin Silver Age, and here we find that 
such critics as Cejador y Frauca, Amador de los Rios, 
and others, lay the blame for the fantastic Spanish 
style upon Rome. However, in this case the resemblance 
between the meretricious verse of the two literatures is 
not particularly striking. Recondite artifices do occur in 
Latin compositions unmistakably gongoristic in nature 
but alien nevertheless to Spanish gongorism. On the 
other hand, the poet Lucan who comes closest to Gén- 
gora, lacks many of the salient elements characteristic 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 139 


of the Spaniard’s fantastic manner. During the time of 
the emperor Nero, and later, there grew up a fad for 
writing curious verses, carmina figurata, in the form 
of the particular subjects described therein. Thus a 
poem upon a fish would be written with spaces, long 
and short lines, so as to resemble a fish. Again, ana- 
gram verses at that time experienced considerable 
popularity and lines which might read the same from 
right to left as the reverse. 
Roma tibi subito Motibus ibit amoR? 


These puerile tricks, being plays upon words rather 
than ideas, are obviously cultist; yet, as we observed, 
nothing so abjectly futile can be found in the poetry of 
Gongora or his imitators. 

The closest parallel that the Latin Silver Age has to 
offer to the effusions of the Spanish Homer is to be 
found, as we said, in the epic of Lucan. His Pharsalia 
occupies a position in Latin poetry roughly analogous 
to that of the Soledades in the Spanish lyric of the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Furthermore, if 
the style of the Roman author is subjected to minute 
scrutiny, it is possible to discover therein innovations 
similar to those which characterize the work of Gon- 
gora. Thus Lucan does indeed introduce a few neolo- 
gisms (bellax, fastibus, arenivagus), and hyperbates 
(durare as a modal auxiliary, sponte with a genitive), 
but these are comparatively so rare that they constitute 
by no means the distinguishing characteristic of Lucan 
that they do with Gongora. Discovering a likeness 


140 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


between the two writers merely on the basis of linguistic 
innovations is analogous to comparing the desert with 
the ocean merely because there happens to be in the 
former an oasis. Grotesque tropes are really the only 
feature both poets possess in common, and even here 
there is a difference in both quantity and quality. 

The Latin poet and the Spaniard may each be likened 
to different decadent styles in architecture: Lucan to 
the flamboyant Gothic; Géngora to the baroque. Orna- 
ment with the first writer does not yet obscure the lines 
of a great design; with the other all sense of form is 
lost under a mass of extrinsic embellishment. The epic 
of Lucan still possesses a certain windy vigor, but with 
the lyric of Géngora movement consists only in the 
ponderous coiling and uncoiling of sluggish metaphors. 
Each poet is undoubtedly upon the same road to de- 
cadence, but Géngora is much farther on the way. 
Moreover, even in the use of tropes there is a great 
difference between the poets. The Spaniard’s favorite 
figure is the metaphor, the Roman’s, hyperbole. Lucan, 
describing a battle, asserts that arrows and darts flew 
so thickly the sky turned black as night; so furious the 
soldiers fought their swords grew hot; and so fast 
stones and arrows sailed through the air that they lique- 
fied and melted away. Telling of Cato’s march through 
the Libyan desert where his soldiers were bitten by 
strange serpents, Lucan exaggerates the harrowing 
physical details with a Rabelaisian gusto. One soldier 
breaks out into a sweat of red virus, another swells up 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 141 


“so that he himself lay concealed within his own body.” 
The passage describing the death of the third will afford 
a fair index of the poet’s style. 


The skin nearest the wound, torn off, disappears, and 
discloses the pallid bones. And now with open surface, 
without a body, the wound is bare; the limbs swim in 
corrupt matter; the calves fall off; without any covering 
matter are the hams; of the thighs, too, every muscle is 
dissolved, and the groin distills black matter. The mem- 
brane that binds the stomach snaps asunder, and the bow- 
els flow away; nor does just so much of the entire body 
as may be expected flow upon the earth, but the raging 
venom melts the limbs; soon does the poison convert all 
the ligaments of the nerves, and the textures of the sides, 
and the hollow breast, and what is concealed in the vital 
lungs, everything that composes man, into a diminutive 
corrupt mass. By a foul death does nature lie exposed; 
the shoulders and strong arms melt; neck and head flow 
away. 

Pharsalia IX. 
The resemblance as well as the difference between Lu- 
can and Goéngora can easily be surmised by contrasting 
the above translation with one of Gongora’s sonnets, 
albeit the rendering of the Spaniard’s poem into Eng- 
lish deprives it of the additional bizarrerie occasioned 
by neologisms and hyperbates. 

This poem which Bavia has now offered to the world, 
if not tied up in numbers, yet is filed down into a good 
arrangement, and licked into shape by learning; is a cul- 
tivated history whose grey-headed style, though not met- 
rical, is combed out and robs three pilots of the sacred 


bark of time, and rescues them from oblivion. But the 
pen that thus immortalizes the heavenly turnkeys on the 


142 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


bronzes of its history is not a pen but the key of ages. 
It opens to their names not the gates of falling memory, 
which stamps shadows on masses of foam, but those of 
immortality. 

Sonnet, Este, que Bauia al mundo 01 a offrecido poema. 


Such a great divergence between the styles of the two 
writers should afford sufficient evidence that Géngora 
did not develop his extravagant manner through imita- 
tion of Lucan. Nevertheless, the fact that the two poets 
have used certain mythological names in common has 
been held as an indication of influence. However, the 
abracadabra of classical nomenclature after the Renais- 
sance was so generally known that it is hardly neces- 
sary to make Lucan the unique source of Géngora’s 
antique learning. Ovid, ever since the Middle Ages, was 
so much better known that, if Gongora’s fund of myth- 
ological information must be traced to a particular 
author, Ovid would seem to be the most logical candi- 
date, especially since Gdngora was evidently acquainted 
with some of his work. The celebrated critic of Spanish 
letters, Amador de los Rios, attempts to trace an un- 
broken succession of bombastic writers from Lucan 
down to Gongora, but there are so many long gaps be- 
tween some of the authors cited that it is hardly credible 
that a tradition of bombast could have been kept alive 
so long. Furthermore, bombast is too general a trait to 
apply to the complex styles of either Lucan or Géngora. 
In the absence of incontrovertible proof of the influence 
of the Roman upon the Spaniard, therefore, we must 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 143 


again suspect the attempts to establish such an influence 
as being based upon nothing more than illusive though 
intriguing resemblances. 

Still another literature, yet more remote than the 
Latin, is claimed by Pellicer, GOngora’s contemporary 
biographer, as the cause of the bard’s fantastic style. 
After modestly asserting, as only a Spaniard can, that 
it would require the combined efforts of all the Greek 
and Roman orators to give Gongora his due meed of 
praise, Pellicer writes in his biography of the poet, 
“His education was not very profound, but it was suf- 
ficient so that his works were not lacking in the rites, 
formulae, customs and ceremonies of the ancients, in 
their beliefs, allegory, ritual and mythology. There are 
found in the phrases of Don Luis many imitations of 
Euripides, Callimacus, Apollonius Rhodius, Nonnus 
Panopolitanus, Quintus Calabrus, Homer, Musaeus 
and other Greek poets. In places he reminds one of the 
orations of Aristenetus and Dion Chrisostomus, with 
the beauty of Anacreontes, Heliodorus and Achilles 
Tatius.” This, of course, is worth nothing as criticism; 
a terrible pedant is merely airing his own erudition 
under cover of writing Gongora a panegyric. Probably 
none of the cited authors writing in an effusive style 
were known to Gongora, but the observation made by 
Pellicer is interesting because it shows that even in Gon- 
gora’s own day, the resemblance between his ornate 
style and that of certain decadent Greek writers had at- 
tracted attention. This similarity has been noted so 


144 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


often that a brief glance at the Greek literature of the 
decadence will repay our trouble if it does nothing more 
than establish another instance of the existence of a 
gongoristic style in no wise related to that of Géngora. 

From the fourth century before Christ down to 
within some three decades of the Christian Era, there 
flourished at Alexandria, Egypt, a school of erudite 
poetasters whose work is artificial in the highest degree. 
On the whole, blind worship of form, straining after 
brilliant and unusual figures of speech, and obscurity 
occasioned by abstruse classical allusions, characterize 
the productions of this epoch. Innovations in language 
such as neologisms and hyperbates are usually, though 
by no means always, wanting, possibly because of the 
slavish respect pedant-poets universally entertain for 
linguistic conventionality. Apart from this, the effu- 
sions of alexandrinism do, in fact, resemble those of 
gongorism very closely, for they are frigid, mannered, 
altogether wanting in spontaneity, full of bombastic 
prolixity, drugged with deep infusions of a kind of 
learning, and are written upon subjects usually foreign 
to poetry. 

The most interesting poet of this group, because of 
his resemblance to Géngora, is Lycophron. His Alex- 
andra or Cassandra (274 B. C.), as it is variously 
called, introduces nearly all the elements of gongorism, 
conceptist and cultist, into. this post-classic Greek 
poetry. I'he prophecies with which Lycophron’s epic 
deals, have all the ambiguousness of oracular utter- 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE |. 145 


ances, tricked out with the pedantry of the day and 
made even more unintelligible by countless allusions to 
little-known myths. Not content with this obscurity, 
the author, in every respect a Gongora, makes use of 
unusual words, bizarre neologisms, and violent innova- 
tions in syntax. As a result of all these mannerisms and 
conceits, Lycophron has made necessary a mass of com- 
mentary even more voluminous than the tremendous 
explanations made of Gongora’s Soledades by Salcedo 
Coronel. Like the Spanish poet, the Greek, because of 
his fantastic style, more exaggerated than that of either 
his predecessors or followers, and because of his in- 
fluence and popularity, may be regarded as the symbol 
and apex of meretricious utterance in his ow literature. 
The striking similarity, indeed, between Lycophron’s 
style and Gongora’s will justify inserting a translation 
of a short passage from the Alexandra. 


For one Bisaltian Eion by the Strymon, close march- 
ing with the Apsynthians and Bistonians, nigh to the 
Edonians, shall hide, the old nurse of youth, wrinkled as 
a crab, ere ever he behold Tymphrestus’ crag: even him 
who of all men was most hated by his father, who pierced 
the lamps of his eyes and made him blind, when he en- 
tered the dove’s bastard bed. 

And three sea-gulls, the glades of Cercaphus shall 
entomb, not far from the waters of Aleis: one the swan 
of Molossus Cypeus Coetus, who failed to guess the num- 
ber of the brood-sow’s young, when, dragging his rival 
into the cunning contest of the wild figs, himself, as the 
oracle foretold, shall err and sleep the destined sleep; the 
next, again, fourth in descent from Erechtheus, own 


146 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


brother of Aethon in the fictitious tale; and third, the 
son of him that with stern mattock ploughed the wooden 
walls of the Ectenes, whom Gongylates, the Counsellor, 
the Miller, slew and brake his head in pieces with his 
curse-expelling lash, what time the maiden daughters of 
Night armed them that were the brothers of their own 
father for the lust of doom dealt by mutual hands. 


Not only do resemblances to gongorism exist in an- 
cient and mediaeval letters, but, as we have briefly noted 
elsewhere, they are discoverable in the great literatures 
of Western Europe at a period almost identical with 
that of the Spanish decadence. This concomitance, to- 
gether with the similarity between their fantastic pro- 
ductions, and the fact that during the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries so much intercourse existed be- 
tween the nations of Southern and Western Europe, 
have led literary historians to attribute the meretricious 
works of one nation to the influence of analogous pieces 
in another. In other words, just as the blame for gon- 
gorism has been laid upon the ancient and the middle, 
ages, SO, too, is the cause for it sought in contempo- 
taneous literature, and with more plausibility since the 
lapses of time are not sufficiently great to invalidate 
the manipulations of glib arguments of source and in- 
fluence. However, we have already observed the ex- 
istence of too many unrelated gongoristic parallels to 
be unduly impressed by resemblances alone. 

Naturally, the closest parallels to gongorism occur in 
the neo-latin languages, inasmuch as they offer the 
greatest possibilities to analogy. Nevertheless, the ger- 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 147 


manic group also presents resemblances to gongorism 
which seem all the more startling because of the differ- 
ence in linguistic medium. Of all these manifestations 
of the meretricious style in the germanic family, that 
in English will of course be most interesting to us. 
Accordingly, we shall pass over the German equivalent 
for gongorism existing in the Silesian School of Chris- 
tian Hofmannswaldau, and the Scandinavian parallel 
in the academy founded in 1644 by Klai and Harsdor- 
fer, investigating only the phenomenon as it appears 
in English. There the florid manner goes under the 
name of euphuism, so called from the principal char- 
acter in two works of John Lyly (1553-1606), Eu- 
phues or the Anatomy of Wit (1579) and Euphues 
and his England (1580). 

A noticeable though somewhat superficial difference 
between the work of Lyly and that of Gongora is that 
the production of the English writer seems to be wholly 
in prose. However, this difference is more apparent than 
real; C. G. Child (John Lyly and Euphuism) has un- 
tied the prologue to Lyly’s Endymion and has shown 
that its paragraphs of seeming prose fall naturally into 
stanzas of rhythmic blank verse. This, to be sure, can- 
not be done with all Lyly’s work, but a vein of lyri- 
cism surely does persist throughout it all. With much 
justice, therefore, Albert Feuillerat remarks (John 
Lyly), “Euphuism is too poetic for prose, too prosaic 
for poetry.” Yet apart from this difference in genre, 
almost all the equivalents of gongorism, both cultist 


148 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


and conceptist, are present in Lyly’s curious prose. 
Similar to the Spaniard’s neologisms is the English- 
man’s penchant for introducing bizarre proper names, 
technical terms, self-coined words, and Latin phrases 
(“the plant Coloquintida,” “the fish Scolopidus,” “the 
herb Anacamsoritus,’ “the physician’s cucurbitae,” 
“teen,” “‘asparagonia,” origanum, dictanum). Lyly has 
no hyperbates, strictly speaking, but inasmuch as a 
hyperbate is only a departure from customary gram- 
matical order, any persistent artificiality in clause or 
phrase arrangement is of an analogous nature. Hence 
Lyly’s excessive use of parisonic antithesis, although by 
no means an outrage upon syntax, possesses a certain 
resemblance to Gongora’s hyperbates. 

Characteristic of Lyly is the abuse of alliteration 
which frequently is used to set off elaborate antitheses 
and plays upon words. In common with Gongora, how- 
ever, he makes use of personification, pun, and paradox, 
in addition to invoking obscure classical references and 
pedantic bits of unnatural natural history for the most 
part taken from Pliny. Lyly’s metaphors and hyper- 
boles, although not as numerous nor as grotesque as 
the Spaniard’s, are nevertheless sufficiently fantastic to 
furnish a final resemblance to the author of the Sole- 
dades. 

“First with a great platter of plum porridge of pleasure 
wherein is stewed the mutton of mistrust. ... Then 
cometh a pye of patience, a hen of honey, a goose of gall, 
a capon of care, and many other viands; some sweet and 


some sowre; which proveth love to bee as it was said of 
in olde yeeres, Dulce venenum.” (Endymion) 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 149 


“T have written my laws in blood and made my gods of 
gold: I have caused mothers wombs to bee their children’s 
tombs, cradles to swim in blood like boats, and the temples 
of the gods a stew for strumpets.” (Mvydas) 


Although Lyly has the reputation of being the most 
extreme of English writers to affect the fantastic style 
as well as being its innovator, he is by no means either 
the first or the worst. Half a century earlier, John Skel- 
ton (1460?-1529). surpassed him in bizarrerie of lan- 
guage and obscure gibberish. 


Moderata juvant, but toto doth excede; 
Dyscressyon is moder of noble vertues all; 
Myden agan in Greke tongue we rede; 
But reason and wyt wantyth theyr prouyncyall 
When wylfulnes is vicar generall. 
Haes res acu tangitur, Parrot, par ma foy; 
Ticez vous, Parrot, tenez vous coye. 


Besy, besy, besy, and besynes agayne! 
Que pensez vouz, Parrot? what meneth this besynes? 
Vitulus in Oreb troubled Arons brayne, 
Melchisedeck mercyfull made Moloc mercyles; 
To wyse is no vertue, to medlyng, to restles; 
In measure is tresure, cum sensu maturato; 
Ne tropo sanno, ne tropo mato. 


Aram was fyred with Caldies fyer called Ur; 

Iobab was brought vp in the lande of Hus; 
The lynage of Lot toke supporte of Assur; 

Iereboseth is Ebrue, who lyst the cause dyscus. 

Peace Parrot, ye prate as ye were ebrius 
Howst the, lyver god van hemrik, ic seg; 
In Popering grew peres, whan Parrot was an eg. 

Speke, Parrot [52-72] 


150 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Contemporary bards also outdo Lyly; Gabriel Harvey 
(1545 ?-1630), the pedant who wished to be “epitaphed 
as the Inventour of the English Hexameter,” besides 
attempting to foist the Latin principle of quantity upon 
English verse, is guilty of alliteration, puns, quips, 
puerile plays upon words, and some grotesque figures 
of speech every bit as absurd as Géngora’s. Indeed, so 
popular became the fad for the fantastic style during 
the Elizabethan Age that even the great Shakespeare 
frequently sins. There is hardly a more exaggerated 
example of oxymoron written by a man of unques- 
tioned genius than the following: 

Why, then, O brawling love, O loving hate! 

O anything, of nothing first create ! 

O heavy lightness ! serious vanity ! 

Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! 

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! 

Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! 


This love feel I, that feel no love in this. 
Romeo and Juliet [Act I, Scene 1] 


Nevertheless, the poet who approaches closest to Gén- 
gora in the use of extraordinary tropes is, unques- 
tionably, Richard Crashawe (1616?-1650), called the 
“divine Crashawe” because of his lachrymose and 
treacly verses upon religious subjects. Christ’s wounds 
he describes as “blood-shot eyes that weep roses,” and 
the soldier’s spear is charged with “opening the purple 
wardrobe of thy side’ from which the Saviour takes 
out and dons the purple garment of his own blood. 
Again, he speaks of the eyes as “nests of milky doves” 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 151 


which, when crying, become “a flaming fountain or a 
weeping fire.” The extreme of the grotesque and re- 
pulsive, however, is reached in a poem describing our 
Lord’s circumcision, the metaphors of which are really 
beyond citation. One of his “divine” epigrams—that on 
the verse in Luke XI, “Blessed be the Paps which Thou 
hast sucked,” we may risk, perhaps, if only to exhibit it 
as a literary curiosity. 


Suppose He had been tabled at thy teats 

Thy hunger feels not what He eats: 

He'll have His teat ere long, a bloody one,— 
The mother then must suck the Son. 


Several theories have been advanced to account for 
euphuism, but none of them analyze the style of Lyly 
into its constituent elements and account for the de- 
velopment of each component. Neither do any of the 
theories take into consideration writers other and earlier 
than Lyly, such as Skelton, whose style is altogether 
different from that of the author of Euphues. Thus 
Feuillerat, noting how Lyly draws upon Pliny for some 
of his pedantry, suggests Latin literature as the cause 
of the Englishman’s style. Croll and Clemons (Eu- 
phues), seeing no other trait than bombast in Lyly’s 
complex manner, would lay it to the influence of medi- 
aeval rhetoricians without proving that Lyly was even 
aware of the existence of such rhetoricians. A Spanish 
source, now deservedly much scouted, seeks to discover 
the English author’s peculiar mannerisms by supposing 
an imitation of Lord North’s garbled translation of a 


152 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


French translation of Guevara’s Relox de principes. 
Finally, Italy has been blamed for Lyly’s style because 
the taste for conceits, never a very important element in 
Lyly’s writing, is presumed to have been occasioned by 
the influence of Italian concetti. 

French literature offers a closer parallel to gongorism 
than English although under no single writer or school 
are all the elements of cultism and conceptism so com- 
pletely united as they are in Spain. There is rather a 
separate group of writers affecting cultist traits and 
another characterized by a predilection for conceptist. 
The clique giving particular thought to the cultivation 
of eccentricity in language, is known as the Pleiade, and 
from the work of their leader, Pierre de Ronsard 
(1524-1585), their style is called ronsardism. On the 
other hand, the school that pays particular attention to 
refinements and niceties of the idea expressed, is the 
group of the Hotel Rambouillet, their affectations go- 
ing by the name of preciosity. Still, since we have found 
that cultism and conceptism merge, we are not likely to 
be surprised if we find some of the elements of pre- 
ciosity in ronsardism, or the reverse. Only in a very 
general way is it possible to assert that the traits of 
cultism exist in literature apart from those of con- 
ceptism. 

The analogy between the exaggerated styles of Gén- 
gora and Ronsard is very close. In some respects the 
French poet is even more radical than the Spaniard, as, 
for example, in his use of neologisms, which are not 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 153 


only much more numerous than Gongora’s but more 
varied and more bizarre. Ronsard levies from the 
Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, Old French; and uses 
dialectisms besides inventing derivatives and com- 
pounds (oligochromen, Phtinopore, pronube, parangon, 
forusis, mehaigne, peupleux, pourperet, toujours-verd). 
The amazing extent to which he carries his practice 
of introducing neologisms is illustrated in a passage 
adorned with technical terms. 


Bien desmesler d’un cerf les ruses et la feinte, 

Le bon temps, le vieil temps, lessuy, le rembuscher, 

Les gaignages, la nuict, le licet et le coucher, 

Et bien prendre le droict et bien faire l’enceinte; 

Et comme s’il fust né d’une nymphe des bois, 

Il jugeoit d’un vieil cerf ala perche, aux espois, 

A la meule, andouillers, et a  embrunisseure, 

A la grosse perleure, aux goutiers, aux cors, 

Aux dagues, aux broquars, bien nourris et bien forts, 

A la belle empaumeure et a la couronneure, 

Il scavoit for-huer, et bien parler aux chiens, 

Faisoit bien la brisée, et le premier des siens 

Cognoissoit bien le pied, la sole et les alleures, 

Fumées, hardouers et frayoirs, et scavoit, 

Sans avoir vu le cerf, quelle teste il avoit, 

En voyant seulement ses erres et fouleures.8 
Ronsard, Eurymedon et Callirhée. 


In the use of hyperbates, Ronsard is not as violent as 
Gongora, although many of his syntactical innovations, 
such as the omission of the article, the approximation 
of the Latin ablative absolute, and the use of a con- 
struction sometimes clumsily called the descriptive geni- 
tive phrase, are exactly like the Spaniard’s. There are, 


154 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


however, in Ronsard’s verses occasional syntactical dis- 
locations which are quite revolutionary. 


Et mesme Jupiter, qui la tempeste jette, 
De Bauce et Philemon entré dans la logette.4 


Further similarity between the two poets may be dis- 
covered in Ronsard’s stilted passages, obscure by reason 
of the wealth of classical references and pedantic allu- 
sions, and his use of tropes, fantastic at times to be 
sure, though never to the extent of Gdéngora’s. On the 
other hand, the Frenchman plays with a metrical device 
more or less consciously eschewed by the Spaniard— 
alliteration. Ronsard’s jingling patterns, crossed, em- 
braced, paired, rhymed, and assonated, together with a 
number of other tinkling, metrical tricks, make up a 
complexity of cultist sonance never attained by Goén- 
gora and scarcely equalled by the troubadours, Aimeric 
de Belenoi and Arnaut Daniel. 

Half a century elapses before we note the appear- 
ance of conceptism in the group of fashionable wits 
and poetasters who gathered about Madame de Ram- 
bouillet. This clique has no leader like Ronsard, Gén- 
gora, or Lyly to stand as the symbol of its literary creed. 
The nearest approach to such a figure, perhaps, might 
be Vincent Voiture (1598-1648), a consummate artist 
at insinuating half-witty obscenities in language too 
elegant to cause offense. He is, of course, worlds re- 
moved from Gongora; yet, in a way, he, too, typifies 
the ideal, or rather the idol of preciosity, which was 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 155 


to smooth over the roughness of language and to give 
it such a high polish as to make it unserviceable for 
common use. Usually the elegant luster of précieuse 
language is attained by the absurd circumlocutions so 
characteristic of savage taboo—periphrases in the 
French movement which came under the sarcasm of 
Moliére. In the speech of preciosity an unromantic 
chamber-pot for instance is sublimated by the lofty 
title “the virginal urinal,” a doctor somewhat justly is 
recognized as “one of Hippocrates’ bastards,” the in- 
teresting yet occult subject of petticoats is rendered still 
more mysterious to the passionate neophyte by calling 
the outer skirt ‘‘the modest one,” the middle one “the 
go-between,” and the one most intimate with the body 
“the secret.’’ Even whole sentences undergo considera- 
ble metamorphoses, so simple a statement as “the wind 
has not deranged your hair’ becoming “the invisible 
element has in no wise squandered the hirsute economy 
of your head.” In such foibles, preciosity does approxi- 
mate one, yet only one, important element in Gongora’s 
fantastic style, and it has behind it likewise the same 
unrestrained frivolity of meretricious wit. Still, joined 
with the linguistic adornments characteristic of ron- 
sardism, France is able, though at different dates, to 
produce trait for trait an equivalent for the conceptism 
and the cultism of gongorism. 

The question of influence between the Spanish and 
French exaggerated styles is easily settled. Gongora, in 
common with most Spaniards of his day, shared the 


156 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


general ignorance of contemporary French literature, 
and consequently there is little reason for supposing 
any imitation of Ronsard and his Pleiade. We have 
shown that gongorism has a long ancestry, reaching 
back at least as far as Juan de Mena. The ancestry of 
ronsardism is even older, embracing not only the cultist 
trickeries of the grands rhetoriquers but their literary 
antecedents, reaching down even to Machault and 
Chartier. As to preciosity as a cause for gongorism, 
chronology obviously vitiates its influence, and the re- 
verse moreover, as Lanson rightly shows, is impossi- 
ble owing to the general ignorance of the French at that 
time in Spanish literary affairs, notwithstanding the 
fact that Voiture and a few others visited the Iberian 
peninsula. Lanson indeed would charge preciosity to the 
conceits and affectations which ultimately culminated in 
the Italian style of marinism. Yet here, as Cabeen and 
Hauvette believe, the great difference between the con- 
cettt of Italy and the circumlocutions of preciosity is 
alone sufficient to preclude an Italian source for the 
French taste, while the influence of Marini himself upon 
the affected exquisites of the Hotel Rambouillet was at 
that time negligible. There is no reason, then, for not 
concluding that preciosity, like the other analogous, 
fantastic, literary phenomena, is also an independent 
growth, though in some measure the product of local 
environmental and cultural conditions. 

A number of references have been made already to 
the flamboyant literature of Italy, and so often has that 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 17 


country been blamed for the sixteenth and seventeenth- 
century extravagance in the letters of practically the 
whole of civilized Europe, that an investigation of the 
Italian movement is of considerable importance. Yet, 
before proceeding with this study, a few general ob- 
servations upon the similarity of the bizarre manner in 
Italy and its counterparts in England, France, and 
Spain may be made with profit. We should note, then, 
first of all, that in Italy as elsewhere the growth of a 
meretricious style is not sudden but rather the product 
of a long evolution; secondly, the phenomenon is 
marked by traits that are both cultist and conceptist, 
although the early periods of the nation’s literature in- 
cline more to cultism, but the later, that is from the 
fifteenth century on, tend toward conceptism—a parti- 
tion not as strongly marked perhaps as in the literature 
of France. Finally, the Italian degenerate style, like 
most of those contemporary with it in Europe, comes 
to a culmination in the work of a particular author who 
becomes its symbol. It is Giambattista Marini (1569- 
1625), an affected poet who gives the name of marin- 
ism to this exaggerated manner in Italy. 

A brief sketch of the growth of marinism will bring 
out other parallels with gongorism. We observed, it 
will be remembered, that in Spain, at the court of Al- 
phonso X, the preciosities of the Provengal lyric were 
cultivated with some assiduity without having much 
effect upon the main current of that nation’s literature. 
Similarly, in Italy, at the court of Frederick IT, as well 


158 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


as in a thirteenth-century school of rhymesters at Pisa, 
there was cultivated a mannered, artificial style of versi- 
fying patterned closely after the Provencal lyric. The 
first writer of note to set the pace in Italy for the fan- 
tastic sort of poetry characteristic of the Trobar clus is 
Guittone d’Arezzo (d. 1294). Latin neologisms, hyper- 
bates, much alliteration, rare rhymes, and forced tropes 
give his work an essentially gongoristic cast. Other and 
later writers occasionally produce work marked with 
similar traits. In Italy, however, as in the early litera- 
ture of Spain, affected poets do not seem to have had 
much influence upon the poetry at large, notwithstand- 
ing the fact that vestiges of Provencal preciosity have 
been imagined in the work of Dante, who did, as a mat- 
ter of fact, entertain an unduly high regard for Arnaut 
Daniel, the worst of the conceited school of trouba- 
dours. 

Innovations in language dwindle after Dante, and 
with the advent of Petrarch the taste for forced con- 
ceits becomes very noticeable. It is almost possible to 
say that historically Petrarch marks for Italy the tran- 
sition from cultist to conceptist poetry, although the 
change should not be regarded as a very abrupt one. 
Yet, once the shift was made, later poets quickly add 
further elements to the conceptism until it becomes 
quite as complex as that in Géngora’s poetry. Fantastic 
conceits, so exaggerated as to border upon the ridicu- 
lous, color the lyrics of Benedetto Cariteo or Gareth 
(1450-1514) and Sannazaro (1458-1530). Serafino 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 159 


Ciminelli (1486-1500) carries hyperbole into uncon- 
scious burlesque, and to this Pietro Bembo (1470- 
1547) adds an inflated rhetoric sustained by the aid of 
multifarious architectonic devices and mannered in 
syntax through an attempt to approximate the artificial 
periods of Cicero’s oratory. Giovanni della Casa (c. 
1503) deserves to be mentioned for his introduction of 
intricate rules of prosody with which he hoped to re- 
fashion Italian verse according to Latin patterns. Tris- 
sino, Alamani, and Tolomei carry his theories to absurd 
lengths, producing in Italian a sort of verse quite simi- 
lar to the bizarre lines of Gabriel Harvey, who attempted 
the same thing in English. Finally, all the elements of 
conceptism are brought to the point of grotesqueness 
in the styles of Tebaldeo and Cardeo, but the extra- 
ordinary tropes of Bernardino Rota and especially 
Angelo di Costanza (d. 1591) prepare the ground uy 
ficiently for the literary orgies of Marini. 

Because Marini’s fantastic style was developed fairly 
late in life, only one work of his will afford us any 
interest, the Adonis (1623), a long poem of 45,000 
lines written in octaves. As with Gongora, the Italian 
did not suddenly adopt an exaggerated manner but 
rather developed it by slow degrees. For this reason, 
his Rime (1602), Dicerie sacre (1614), La galleria 
(1618), and the Sampogna (1620), although showing 
evidence of a progressive taste for garish writing, 
show so little of it in comparison with the Adonis that 
they may be disregarded. With some justice, then, we 


160 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


may again describe this, his most flamboyant effusion, 
as a ‘Soledad.’ Here, however, we must be careful, be- 
cause the Italian poet, although using nearly all the ele- 
ments constituting Gdongora’s abnormal style, employs 
them in such different proportions that the Adonis has 
a character quite unlike the great poem of the Spanish 
author. Most noticeable, for example, is Marini’s use 
of neologism and hyperbate. With Gdngora, these two 
traits are characteristic, but with the Italian poet, neolo- 
gisms, and even words not sanctioned by common 
usage, are quite rare while his hyperbates are neither 
profuse nor violent. On the other hand, in the use of 
antithesis and other architectonic sentence devices, oxy- 
moron, pun, paradox, allegory, and personification, 
Marini often surpasses Gongora. 

The closest similarity between the two poets lies in 
the common predilection for grotesque metaphors, al- 
though even here the Italian’s are not quite as extra- 
ordinary as the Spaniard’s. The heart is thus called 
“the public exchequer of Love and Nature,’ flesh is 
“animated milk,” and the mouth a “jail of pearls and 
an urn of gems.’’ Mixed metaphors sometimes pro- 
duce an unintentionally comic effect, as when “The 
gentle smile of Love shoots out lightning flashes” or a 
tearful person “spins out silver from the eyes.” Hyper- 
bole also frequently provokes a smile, especially when 
“passionate love catching on fire from its very heart 
consumes itself with agony” and a lover “burns to 
sample the celestial liquor of the purple roses of a 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 161 


woman’s mouth.”’ Metaphors such as these, together 
with tedious circumlocutions, obscure mythological, 
astrological, classical, and astronomical pedantries give 
to Marini’s verses a character at times very similar to 
Gongora’s, though by no means so concentrated in their 
patch-work of gibberish. 

Era ne la stagion che’ 1 Can celeste 

Fiamma esala latrando e I’aria bolle, 

Ond’arde e langue in quelle parte e’n queste 

In fiore e l’erba e la campagna e’! colle: 

E’!] Pastor per spelonche e per foreste 

Riffugi a l’ombra fresca, a l’onda molle. 

Mentre che Febo a l’animal feroce 

Che fu spoglia d’Alcide il tergo coce.5 

Adonis, III: 7 
Concerning the possible influence of Marini upon 
Gongora, the fact that the Adomis, the only really 
bizarre work of the Italian poet, was not published 
before 1623, and Gongora, as we have seen, had fully 
developed his grotesque style by 1605 at the latest, 
makes such a hypothesis untenable. Some patriotic 
Italians have, later, even gone so far as to lay the 
blame for Marini’s excesses upon Gongora, relying 
upon the friendship between Marini and Lope de Vega 
to blaze a rather dubious and difficult trail of infer- 
ences. While the existence of Italian poets prior to 

Marini who have contributed to the development of an 
exaggerated style in the poetry of that country is suf- 
ficient evidence to clear GOngora of the blame of marin- 
ism, the centuries of close contact between Spain and 


162 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Italy make it extremely difficult to prove without a 
doubt that marinism and gongorism have never influ- 
enced one another. We have seen, however, many in- 
stances in which epidemics of flamboyant writing attain 
similarity, at the same time that they evolve independ- 
ently. We have also repeatedly noted that in many 
cases it is only the resemblance that constitutes the 
proof of the supposed influence. In spite of the close 
contact, therefore, between the two countries, infer- 
ence seems justifiable, in the absence of valid proof to 
the contrary, that either marinism or gongorism would 
each have evolved practically unchanged had the other 
never existed. 

What then is the cause of these literary decadencies, 
and why should the meretricious styles manifest them- 
selves in such constant patterns? Surely it is not mere 
coincidence that has often developed traits of cult- 
ism and conceptism, so close to the fantastic man- 
ner of Gongora, in literatures as widely dissimilar and 
isolated from one another as the Arabic, Norse, Alex- 
andrine Greek, Provencal, and Irish. Do not the 
long periods of evolution culminating in euphuism, 
ronsardism, marinism, and gongorism in the contem- 
poraneous literatures of Europe also bear evidence of 
long independent germination, growth, and fruition of 
the grotesque styles even though their respective liter- 
atures are not altogether isolated? On the other hand, 
if there is indeed an underlying cause for all these 
movements, what explanation can be given for the 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 163 


variations and the distinctive natures of each? Are they 
due wholly to the influence of particular cultural en- 
vironments, or are there accidental causes contributing 
here and there to individualities as marked as those 
characteristic, say, of preciosity, euphuism, and alex- 
andrinism ? 

The last questions are most easily answered. To be 
sure, every literature bears the impress of a particular 
cultural outlook, its Weltanschauung, which colors 
every phase of literary growth, including the deca- 
dence. Thus, in the spirit of the Middle Ages, one may 
discover a particular fondness for the subtle and ab- 
struse. At that time learning, such as it was, became 
the property of a caste jealous of itself, almost a secret 
society, dwelling apart from the ignorant mass of man- 
kind after the fashion of the Druids, the Egyptian and 
Chaldean sages. ‘Scientists’ then wrapped their curi- 
ous discoveries in cabalistic pictures, parables, or ana- 
gram verses, just as Roger Bacon concealed his secret 
for the composition of gunpowder. Similarly, poets, 
affecting to write for an exclusive circle, attempted to 
set a premium upon their compositions by making them 
unintelligible to the simple and the unlettered. This 
they did by assuming an air of profundity, by obscure 
references, far-fetched conceits, and garish language. 
The Provengal literature of the Trobar clus especially 
affords a fine example of this literary snobbery: the 
poets Gavaudan, Ignaure, Marcabrun, and Peire 
d’Alvernhe are all very outspoken in avowing that 


164 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


they write obscurely merely so that the vulgar multi- 
tude cannot understand them. 

This attitude, moreover, is to some extent character- 
istic of mediaeval French and Italian literature, as well 
as Provencal, and for that reason the stilted literary 
styles of those three countries bear especially close 
resemblances. GOngora, too, writing for the snobbish 
cultos, affected to disdain the herd, and consequently 
his poetry is similar to the Trobar clus in many respects. 
Indeed, the tendency to sublimate and make poetry 
recondite and difficult is sometimes pushed to such 
lengths that the language and concepts of verse become 
the exclusive property of a few initiates and is under- 
stood by them alone. Among semi-civilized peoples the 
aloofness of the bard and the mystery of his trade 
lead even to the practice of poetry as a magical cult, 
vestiges of which we find in the rhymes of the Scalds 
and still more plainly the Bélre filed of the Irish bards 
until, descending to the level of primitive peoples, we 
discover the poet altogether identified with the seer and 
conjurer. 

Related influences produce analogous results, and 
often a poetry loses its democratic character by devel- 
oping a complicated code of artistic canons. This fre- 
quently happens when a literature reaches the full 
maturity of its classical period fairly early. Succeeding 
epochs are then characterized by imitations of past 
masterpieces, imitations written according to the dic- 
tates of fixed rules deduced from analyses of the class- 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 165 


ical productions. As time progresses, such rules become 
more and more intricate, and the utterances conforming 
to them, ever more artificial and frigid. This naturally 
stifles the spontaneous expression of poetry while it 
sets a premium upon metrical gymnastics, formalism, 
and conceptist convolutions. The Greek poetry of Alex- 
andria and the Arabic verses of the Suffi school furnish 
illustrations of poetry written under such conditions. 
Actuated by a kindred principle is a feeling that the 
homely, every-day words of speech are vulgar and 
stale. The resultant attempt to create elegance, wit, and 
brilliance produces a style best exemplified by preci- 
osity although it is undoubtedly a contributing factor 
also in the development of marinism and euphuism. 
Again, a grotesque style may be induced by imitation of 
works of genius by persons of inferior ability. Failing 
to create great work, would-be poets are often reduced 
to exaggerating the facile eccentricities and manner- 
isms which so frequently mar pieces of the highest 
art. This, of course, is imitation, as Moliére puts it, of 
the tousser and cracher of genius. The Italian fashion 
for conceits, for example, set by tasteless imitations of 
Petrarch, is largely the result of this. Finally, an ex- 
aggerated style may be developed from the revolt 
against the tyranny of too rigorous rules, the outcome 
being a sort of cultural anarchy such as that which 
followed in the wake of romanticism unrestrained. 
Still, these explanations adduce causes which are 
neither universal nor fundamental. To grasp the under- 


166 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


lying motive for all periods of meretricious writing, 
let us regard literature, which is after all nothing but 
the spiritual record of a group linguistic consciousness, 
as something possessing a cyclic life coincident with 
that of the people of which it is the expression. In- 
deed, the life of a literature has many very close 
analogies with that of an individual: it possesses a rude 
epic infancy wherein are produced the dull, elephantine 
sagas of head-whacking; a dramatic maturity when 
great characters with great actions combine to produce 
the ultimate masterpieces of its literature; and, finally, 
it exhibits a period of senile decadence characterized by 
creative exhaustion resulting in pedantry, superficial 
brilliance, and imitation. It is the golden ages which 
stand for the nation’s fullest cultural maturity, the 
products of some marvelous summer which descends 
swiftly and but once upon the fields of art. The fruit 
ripened under this precious season always possesses a 
color and flavor whose richness and exuberance is be- 
yond the power of cultivation to produce or care to 
prolong. 

Nevertheless, this fruit is as quick to rot as it is to 
ripen, and, consequently, even during the brief summer 
of the Golden Age, fruit, flower, and decay may be 
seen upon the same branch. It is this decay which mani- 
fests itself in the various eccentric styles of euphuism; 
marinism, gongorism, and,so on. It is to be discovered 
first in genres like the lyric which, because of its limited 
scope, matures earlier than greater genres like the novel 


OTHER MERETRICIOUS VERSE 167 


and drama. This explains the seeming paradox of gon- 
goristic decadence in the Spanish lyric at the same time 
that the novel of Cervantes and the drama of Lope 
were at their greatest. The last half of the seventeenth 
century and the succeeding one, however, witness a 
decay of these genres so complete as to approach almost 
putrescence. Still, while the parallel between literature 
and the ripening of fruit may be justified by way of 
illustration, the harvest of a field of art is obviously 
far more complex than that of an orchard. There is 
not one season of literary fruition only, but a great 
many, or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say, 
many phases of a single season all subordinate to the 
great harvest of the Golden Age, each having its sec- 
ondary or subsidiary minor cycles of growth, maturity, 
and gongoristic decay. Thus the culture of Europe has 
experienced an early though slight growth in the eighth 
century, another greater and more widely spread in the 
twelfth, then, after the classic periods of the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries, a florescence of unpruned ver- 
biage called romanticism. Certain genres and certain 
schools have also their dependent climaxes so that there 
are really movements within movements, or, to resort 
again to another analogy, literature is like a large 
mountain range having a distinctive central ridge and 
culminating peak, made up at the same time of in- 
numerable spurs and foothills, each with its particular 
summit and its particular counterslope of gongorism. 


168 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Yet if the artistic life of a people develops in cycles, 
and meretricious adornment is characteristic of the 
phase of its decadence, then not in literature alone but 
in every province of cultural expression similar fan- 
tastic styles should be observed. Truly it would be a 
superficial attitude to expect the sun and rains of 
time, which set the seasons of growth in the emotional 
life of a nation, to bring to harvest one genre only. 
Literature, Music, Architecture, Sculpture, and Paint- 
ing are all the major fruits of artistic life. To revert 
to our earlier analogy, although one fruit may mellow 
and decay a little earlier than the rest, still, just as the 
golden harvest is roughly contemporaneous for all, so 
it is that the inevitable season of rot is not only uni- 
versal but also nearly simultaneous for each. We shall 
accordingly investigate the music and the fine arts of 
Spain to see whether this parallel decadence, so justi- 
fied by inference, does rest indeed upon fact. 


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Vill. THE FANTASTIC STYLE IN MUSIC 


USIC is perhaps the most subjective of the 
J arts, yet at the same time it offers a 
limited field for objective imitation anala- 
gous to that open to the graphic and 
plastic arts. The soughing of winds, 
rumble of thunder, booming of cannon, and shrieks and 
cries of soldiers in battle have always been subjects 


within range of the virtuoso. These sound-simulative 
compositions occasionally become more varied when 
there is at the disposal of the performer a number of in- 
struments of differing timbre. Thus barks and grunts 
may be evoked from the lower manuals of an organ, 
squeals and bird songs by a flute, and all kinds of cater- 
wauling upon the strings of a violin. But music of this 
character, like onomatopoetic verse, is justly regarded as 
freakish, despite its effectiveness when used rarely and 
with discrimination, because the chromatic tonal capaci- 
ties of music are too restricted to permit much objective 


[ 169 ] 


170 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


description. Therefore, such meretricious experiments 
may be regarded as lying outside the true province of 
music, and, inasmuch as they tend to become imagistic 
rather than emotional, we may compare them to the 
extreme cultist eccentricities of gongorism. 

Although these productions are limited to no par- 
ticular period or people, one kind of music peculiar to 
the Middle Ages and especially to Spain of the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries may well be termed “‘cultist,” 
since it has no esthetic justification whatever and, in 
fact, scarcely deserves the name of music. It is written 
for the eye instead of the ear, like the carmina figurata 
described in an earlier chapter. In this class are the 
musical enigmas such as the writing of a hymn to 
Christ upon staves arranged in the form of a cross, 
a hymn to the Trinity with the staves in the shape 
of a triangle symbolizing the three-in-one nature of 
the Deity, or even more complicated puzzles such as 
a musical diagram [see plate I] of the location of 
the blessed in Paradise. Bizarreries of a slightly dif- 
ferent character are bits of music, analogous to the 
anacyclic verses of Nero’s reign, so written as to sound 
the same if played from right to left, or even upside 
down, as in the normal manner. Finally, without having 
exhausted the catalogue of technical and fantastical 
tricks by any means, we may mention another sort of 
“cultist”” music which by the graphical notation of its 
elements attempts to simulate the meaning of the words 
accompanying them. Angels flying through the air, for 


FANTASTIC STYLE IN MUSIC 171 


example, are represented by volutes of rapid high notes, 
eternity is symbolized by a long series of double whole 
notes, and Hell by a sharp descent in the tonic scale. 

The latter type of ‘‘cultist’”” music verges upon a 
subtle reconditeness which we may term “‘conceptism,” 
because associated with the playing with graphical 
form there is also an attempt to juggle with ideas. Yet 
the primary expression of intellectual concepts, rather 
than the arousing of emotions, is foreign to the true 
province of music, and, if the tendency were carried fur- 
ther, music would become to all intents and purposes a 
language. As a matter of fact, during the Golden Age 
something like this actually happened. The scales or 
modes and the individual notes comprising them were 
endowed with particular meanings so that by a subtle 
shifting about of musical elements, just as if they were 
letters, rudimentary ideas might be expressed even as 
by words. As the articulation of this music became 
more and more complicated, its esthetic appeal obviously 
was sacrificed. Gradually it lost altogether its direct 
influence upon the emotions, and, like a veritable lan- 
guage, its “alphabet” and “words” had to be commit- 
ted to memory before the new, esoteric significance 
could be appreciated. 

The origin of this musical conceptism possesses an 
interesting history, of sufficient length to prove its 
independent development, the salient features being as 
follows. During pre-classical antiquity, in the provinces 
of and near Greece, there flourished, more or less in- 


172 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


dependently, certain schools of music characterized by 
a predilection for instruments of particular pitch and 
quality. Later, as Greek culture amalgamated into some 
unity, the rude musical systems which grew up in these 
provincial schools were subject to considerable stand- 
ardization, but still retained something of their earlier 
individual characteristics. The several differences in 
pitch, especially, remained, though metamorphosed and 
reformed into eight different scales or modes which 
preserved, in the nomenclature, traces of their pro- 
venience. Either through primitive associations or per- 
haps accident, these modes were endowed with particular 
qualities which were supposed to impart their coloring 
to all compositions written within the mode. In this 
wise the music of Lydia, possibly because of some es- 
tablished custom, was associated with weeping and 
lamentations. Becoming a key or mode it was consid- 
ered lugubrious, and hence suited to pieces that would 
achieve a mournful nature irrespective of the emotional 
effect of the score itself. Plato denounced this lachry- 
mose scale because he considered it effeminate, and 
gradually, changing its meaning even as words do, the 
mode acquired first the quality of effeminacy, then 
lasciviousness, and finally gaiety, the opposite of its 
original meaning. 

As this recondite music lost its true esthetic appeal 
and popular character it fell to the mercy of learned 
men. Cicero identified the eight modes with the seven 


FANTASTIC STYLE IN MUSIC 173 


planets and the sidereal universe, and when the Chris- 
tian ecclesiastical pedants took over the ancient system, 
they further embroidered it with astrology, allegory, 
and pseudo-science. During the Dark Ages music became 
inextricably bound up with mathematics, at that time 
rightly considered a diabolical art, with the result that 
it became one of the handmaidens of black magic and 
attained a gongoristic obscurity from which it has hardly 
recovered to this day. Boethius (475?-524?) carried 
the Pythagorean symbolism of numbers into musical 
theory, and the Spanish philosopher, Saint Isidore of 
Seville (560?-639), added to music mystical specula- 
tions anent the association of rhythmic harmony with 
words representing concrete things. 

The vogue of this musical hocus-pocus among the 
erudite is surprising. Alphonso the Learned desired to 
establish a chair of music at the University of Sala- 
manca, and throughout the later Middle Ages the art 
found itself included among the subjects taught in the 
Quadrivium. By the sixteenth century the cult of this 
fictitious science attained such proportions that there 
were some forty leading musicologues in Spain alone 
and nearly one hundred and fifty learned musicians and 
schools of musicians. Naturally the chasm between 
speculative and popular music was irreparably widened, 
the advantage this time lying wholly upon the side of 
the pedants who denounced as “town criers’’ those true 
singers who still attempted to charm the ear alone with- 
out a knowledge of weird theoretical harmonics. The 


174 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


scorn of learned unmusical musicologues for the unlet- 
tered musician is evident from an anathema breathed 
out by Espinosa, a choleric old philosopher of music, 
against one Biscargui, a practical musician and organ- 
ist of the sixteenth century who had the temerity to 
publish an art of plain chant and counterpoint. 
Let him be silent, and let him stand ashamed, this Gon- 
calo Martinez Biscargui person, Chaplain in the church of 


Burgos, and henceforth and forever let his barbarous and 
poisonous voice cease from its presumption of teaching 


and writing these musical heresies ... For he putteth 
his trust utterly and altogether upon his ear whereas it is 
plain that the ear may be deceived . . . for as Boethius 


sayeth [here the good professor discharges a blunderbuss 
filled with erudite, scholastic references] the sense of 
hearing in art can become the judge of neither consonance 
nor dissonance: by which art one ought to understand 
naturally not only the theory and practice of music, but 
yet of the art harmoniously disposed: and he [Biscargui] 
showeth himself already that he is no philosopher from 
that which he writeth and teacheth: for he knoweth full 
well that he is of the company of song mongers and 
jongleurs which those weighty authorities that he himself 
contradicteth with so great audacity and so little shame, 
call in many a passage the very slaves of music. 


Here surely is a parallel to the disdain felt by gon- 
goristic writers for all persons outside their exclusive 
culto circle, and furthermore the abstruse abracadabra 
characteristic of Géngora’s school finds its equivalent in 
the subtle concepts of musicologues. Juan Bermudo, 
one of Spain’s most famous musical theoreticians, in 
his Declaracién de instrumentos (1549) furnishes a 


FANTASTIC STYLE IN MUSIC 175 


number of examples of the reading of esoteric mean- 
ings into the scales, which, as we have said, became 
thereby rudimentary words. According to him, the first 
mode is a happy one, identified with the sun, the reason 
being that the sun dries up fog and mist and hence the 
mode is endowed with properties for drying up moist 
humors such as laziness, sadness, and tears, at the same 
time that it is conducive to sprightly conversation and 
discretion. Bermudo avows that he never knew a man 
who composed much in this scale who did not attain a 
noble bearing and excellent judgment. The second mode 
is grave and sad, because it is associated with the 
moon, the lowest of all planets, and one whose influence 
is damp, gloomy, and tearful. The third mode is angry, 
terrible, provocative to ire, and hence is fittingly identi- 
fied with Mars. Mercury, the flatterer and fawner, 
endows the fourth mode with procurative and adulative 
properties. If this mode be used in conjunction with 
any other it acts as a sort of catalytic agent to hasten 
its virtues; thus, if a piece be written in two modes, 
the third and fourth, or those belonging respectively to 
Mars and Mercury, it will cause whoever hears the 
piece composed therein to grow angry much more 
quickly than if the entire composition were written in 
the third mode alone. The fifth mode is Jupiter’s and, 
according to Bermudo, a good one to sing praises in, 
besides being especially salubrious to the blood. Here, 
however, one may note that a later musical pedant, 
Andreas Lorente (c. 1672), evidently recalling the 


176 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


story of Leda and the Swan, claims that it is a vile 
and lecherous mode. The next one is identified with 
Venus, and accordingly its important virtues may well 
be imagined, though it is interesting to note that eccle- 
siastical musicologues sublimated the pagan eroticism 
of the great goddess into a treacly sort of spiritual 
charity. Strength is the property of the seventh mode, 
due, Lorente says, to the fact that it takes a very strong 
voice to sing so high. Bermudo, on the other hand, 
knowing that this is Saturn’s mode, endows it with 
gravity and maintains that it is the fit one for cere- 
monious compositions. The eighth, finally, has kinship 
with all others, is a perfect mode and one which is 
identified with the starry heavens, close to the throne 
of God and for that reason a splendid one in which to 
compose hymns, petitions, and prayers. ° 

Although these modes merely cast a particular mys- 
tical character or meaning over the entire composition 
written in them, the musical “language” went much 
further. Each note or unit was given a particular sym- 
bolic meaning that varied from mode to mode so that 
sixty-four individual concepts could be formed by the 
eight notes of the eight modes. Moreover, by combining 
two or more notes, an almost infinite number of esoteric 
meanings could be obtained. Obviously, this subtle 
musical wizardry became impossibly complicated, espe- 
cially when no two musicologues agreed as to the pre- 
cise meanings and virtues of modes, notes, or possible 


FANTASTIC STYLE IN MUSIC 177 


notational and modal combinations. To make the con- 
fusion still worse one should remember that the most 
intricate rules for harmony existed, such as those 
formulated by Montanos (1592) and altogether differ- 
ently by Salinas (1577), which, based not upon physics 
but spectaculative theory, approved or forbade certain 
combinations of sounds. In addition there were mystics 
like Tapia (1570), who treated harmony and discord 
in music as properties not of mathematics, physics, or 
concepts but rather of matters of the soul in its relation 
to God. Other learned men investigated the magical 
nature of music; Martino Delrio, for example, in his 
great book on the black art (1599), sees in the sounds 
of music occult properties that further complicate the 
notational arrangements permitted to the erudite musi- 
cian. In short, a mass of convention, superstition, specu- 
lation, pseudo-science, and learning so weighed upon 
the composer that he had to labor like a mountain to 
bring forth a mouse, even then running grave danger 
in having the particular esoteric meaning he intended, 
mistaken for a different one by another learned 
theorist. 

All this difficulty arose from not understanding the 
true functions of music, and because of the existence 
of no absolute standards of beauty, since beauty ob- 
viously is neither innate nor invariable. At that time 
the nature of music was not sufficiently understood to 
formulate even an artistic constitution of conventions. 


178 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Instead of there being a sort of United States of Music 
with basic laws in operation throughout all provinces, 
there were a number of petty musical kingdoms, some 
mathematical, some magical, some ideational, some 
mystical, all at war with one another and with scarcely 
a single common bond. The composer, therefore, found 
himself in a dilemma when he attempted to create, be- 
cause if he gave pleasure to the ear alone he was sure 
to be denounced as lascivious and immoral; if he es- 
chewed the hypothetical precepts of musicology, to be 
condemned as an ignoramus; and if he delved into the 
magical, to be burnt at the stake for witchcraft. On 
the other hand, if he attempted to espouse the thousand 
and one fickle theories of music, his discordant pro- 
ductions were certain to be anything but What is re- 
garded as legitimate music. 

Nevertheless, during the Renaissance, a semblance of 
order began to take form throughout this musical an- 
archy. An Italian composer, Palestrina, then began to 
write according to certain ideas which, with some meta- 
morphosis, have evolved into what are recognized today 
as fundamental principles of music. Canons of harmony 
were established, partly upon physical laws and partly 
upon conventionalized esthetic fictions, by the observ- 
ance of which it was possible to arrange sounds so as 
to give the maximum pleasure to the ear, the sensuous, 
rather than the spiritual aspect of music usually being — 
paramount during the Renaissance even as it was in 
the other arts. Upon this half-esthetic, half-scientific 


FANTASTIC STYLE IN MUSIC 179 


foundation, there was in addition a strong tendency in 
music, not only in Italy but particularly in Spain during 
the Golden Age, toward florid extravagance. The ex- 
uberance of the creative period tended to stifle true ex- 
pression by smothering it in a profusion of polyphonic 
baroques, that is to say, accompanimental notes which 
dissipate by their very prolixity and misplaced empha- 
sis, the vigor, unity, and coherence of the musical theme 
instead of accentuating it. In short, we may truly liken 
this effusiveness and over-richness in the music of the 
great age to the bombast so characteristic of its litera- 
ture. 

Into this artistic milieu came the Spanish com- 
poser, Tomas Ludovica de Victoria (1540?-1613), 
who because of his exaggerated flamboyancy, symbol- 
ism, and subtlety, deserves to be called the “Gongora of 
music.’ In matters of technical harmony, of course, it 
must be conceded that Victoria follows the general 
principles of music embodied in the work of the Italian 
composer, Palestrina. On account of his technique and 
also possibly owing to his study in Italy, he has been 
superficially condemned as “‘Palestrina’s ape.” Yet noth- 
ing could be more unjust, because, in matters touching 
Victoria’s creative genius, he is as original as he is 
Spanish. If his extrinsic mannerisms resemble Pales- 
trina’s, as they do to a degree, just as GOngora’s resem- 
ble Marini’s, it is again only in that both composers are 
affected by the same spirit of effusiveness which swept 
over Europe during and after the Renaissance. In mat- 


180 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


ters of deeper significance Victoria’s individuality can- 
not be impeached. 

As Gongora attempted to create a language for 
poetry, so Victoria attempted to invent a “language” 
for music. Neither, to be sure, was altogether original; 
rather both were fusers of the attempts of a long series 
of innovators. Victoria tried not only to make music 
beautiful to the senses but, what was more important to 
him, to make it speak to what we may call, for want of 
a more convenient word, the “‘soul.”’ In order to achieve 
this he drew upon the bizarre modal and notational 
concepts and occult symbolisms which we have already 
described,. adding others of his own that were even 
more subtle. Nevertheless, being a true musician and 
not a musicological pedant, he never became so wholly 
absorbed in the esoteric meaning of his productions as 
to sacrifice harmony to mystical riddling, because like 
Gongora, he was always a true artist, even in the midst 
of his most epileptical phantasies. 

A characteristic example of Victoria’s eccentric 
music may be seen in the hymn In Ascensione Domini 
(1581?). Written in the “devoted” mode, anciently the 
Hypolydian which the Greeks consecrated to Venus, we 
find, if we accept the dicta of Bermudo and Lorente, 
that the hymn is, in consequence, automatically endowed 
with the qualities of sweetness, compassion, and sad- 
ness. Any piece composed in this mode should therefore 
possess the power to move the listener to tears, though 
musicologues bid us note that the tears are tears of joy 


FANTASTIC STYLE IN MUSIC 181 


as well as sadness, because the mysterious virtue of this 
mode exalts at the same time that it melts the heart. 
The mode then is singularly appropriate to the theme, 
Christ’s redemption of men at the price of his own 
suffering and death. In this case, we should observe that 
the recondite modal symbolism is quite justified since 
its esoteric fiction was recognized by cultist musicians 
whom Victoria could not afford to ignore. Obviously 
the next mode, either above or below, would have 
served practically as well, as far as the musical theme 
is concerned. Choosing the mode that he does, how- 
ever, Victoria merely achieves an additional subtle con- 
ceit without impairing or restricting his hymn. 

Still Victoria goes much further, sacrificing spon- 
taneity for esotericism, as an analysis of the hymn will 
show (see plates II, III, IV, and V for the full text in 
modern notation). The theme, printed at the top of the 
hymn proper (plate II) is divided into four portions 
as follows: 

I. Jesu Nostra Redemptio 
II. Amor et desiderium 


III. Deus creator omnium 
IV. Homo in finem tempore 


The development of the hymn with the theme above 
may also be arranged in a table. 


Quae te vicit clementia —imitation, four voices, from low 
to high on part I of the theme. 

Ut ferres nostra crimina —the cantus accompanied with the 
other voices of part II of the theme. 


182 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Crudelem mortem patiens—Successive imitations from low 
ut nos a morte tolleres to high on part I of the theme, with 
the cadence in mi, si, sol (sharp), 

mt on tolleres. 
Ipsa te cogat pietas ut mcla—Sucessive imitations from low to 


nostra superes high on redemptio-amor, parts II 
and III of the theme. 
Parcendo voti compotes —Part III of the theme. 
Nos tuo vulto saties —Part IV of the theme. 


The piece ends with a cadence in mi, si, sol (sharp) re- 
tarded, followed by a resumption of the choir with Tu esto 
nostrum. 


Perhaps some explanation may be necessary to make 
this clear. Beginning with the first verse of the hymn 
proper, Quae te vicit clementia, it will be seen that the 
bass begins a tune similar to part I of the theme and, 
after a half rest, the tenor comes in with a second imi- 
tation of the same theme, then the alto, and finally the 
canto. The symbolic meaning is this: just as the theme 
is apparent through each of the four voices, so likewise 
the meaning of the words of the theme, Jesu nostra re- 
demptio, is to be understood as underlying the mean- 
ing of Quae te vicit clementia, and in the same way the 
second verse of the hymn, Ut ferres nostra crimina, has 
attached to it the significance of the second portion of 
the theme, Amor et desidertum. In other words, the 
idea expressed so complicatedly is that it is love which 
urged Christ to bear our sins. The rest of the hymn 
may similarly be interpreted by following the analysis 
in the table above. 


Pon rASTIC STYLE IN MUSIC 183 


It will be recalled that musicologues attributed mean- 
ings to separate notes as well as modes. How far Vic- 
toria goes in the use of this more difficult and detailed 
symbolism is very difficult to say definitely. As Victoria 
was always a true musician, when it came to a question 
of chosing either harmony or subtlety, the latter was 
usually sacrificed. Nevertheless, whenever possible, 
Victoria weaves a subtle meaning into the air, by nota- 
tional arrangement, complementary to the meaning of 
the accompanying words. When, therefore, certain 
words in the hymn are linked with notes whose separate 
significance seems particularly fitting, we may be rea- 
sonably sure that we have not discovered a mere coinci- 
dence. In the above hymn, for instance, the word homo 
of the theme is written to two notes whose meanings 
are “harsh” and “pernicious” ; Deus accompanies two 
notes of the same value signifying “powerful”; and 
Creator four notes expressing, in order, the concepts 


#2. 6 


powerful,” “comforting,” “power- 


+> «666 


“compassionate, 
ful.” Of these four notes, two have the same quality, 
that is, the notes expressing “powerful,” which, when 
added to the identical symbolism of the preceeding 
word deus, give three notes of the same parity typify- 
ing the tripart conception of God, the three constituents 
of which are equal. This leaves, then, three notes of 
different quality for the following synonym Creator, 
symbolizing in turn the individuality of the three ele- 
ments of God’s personality: Christ, the son, written to 
a note meaning “compassionate,” God, the father, to 


184 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


two notes of the same quality emphasizing “powerful,” ~ 
the chief attribute of the diety, and finally the Holy 
Spirit to a note expressing “comforting.” A “subtle 
man,” as Dante terms an “inspired” critic, might find 
innumerable other hidden meanings not quite as strik- 
ing. Accordingly, we may regard such as compromises 
between the harmonious and the esoteric, resulting in 
the impairment of both, or else possibly as meanings 
never intended by Victoria but read into him by the 
excessive zeal of the commentator. 

This recondite phase of Victoria’s music is compara- 
ble to the pedantic allusions and far-fetched classical 
and mythological references of the gongorists. An 
equivalent to the grotesque metaphors of the flam- 
boyant school may also be found in the musician’s 
imagism. Victoria’s figures, upon occasion, are almost 
as abstruse as his symbolisms; thus his motet Duo 
seraphim clamabant, built upon the Gregorian theme, 
Ave Maria Stella, in the phrase genitum non factum of 
the credo contains, in triple superposition, portions of 
the melodies which correspond to the words virgo, 
mater, and ave, respectively. The musician in this wise 
expresses, by a subtle conceit, his belief in-the immacu- 
late conception and his love for the virgin: Again, 
though less esthetic, is a sort of Wagnerian subjective 
onomatopoesis, that is, an imitation produced upon the 
sense of hearing of something perceived by another 
sense, such as seeing or feeling. An example of this 
may be found in the phrase tu quae genuistt from the 


FANTASTIC STYLE IN MUSIC 185 


second part of the antiphone, Alma Redemptoris Mater 
where the action of the verb genuisti, the climactic 
orgasm of bringing forth a child, is simulated by the 
music which first begins slowly with two half notes, 
followed after by a convulsive run of seven quarters, 
then a sharp spasm of two eighths, a rest on half a note, 
and finally complete relaxation and relief as a whole 
note comes forth. Much simpler appear certain details 
in his two passions, secundum Matthaeum and secun- 
dum Johannem, where, in the scene of the crucifixion, 
he represents in plastic music the vast crowd, soldiers, 
mockers, mourners, and angels descending from heaven, 
by ornate musical baroques, volutes, runs, trills, and 
every sort of extrinsic notational embroidery. 

An interesting side light is thrown upon Victoria’s 
eccentric music when we note that his literary style is 
quite as gongoristic as any of the productions of the 
Cordovan Swan. The prologue of the musician’s last 
work, the O fiicium Defunctorum (1605), accompanied 
also by a short poem, is so utterly befuddled by con- 
fused metaphors and tenuous classical allusions as to 
be quite unintelligible. The possibility that Victoria’s 
fantastic music was induced by the influence of gon- 
gorism, however, is unlikely, since the evolution of this 
bizarre music possesses an antiquity even greater than 
that of the strange poetry. The fact that Victoria, and 
other musicians as well, are gongoristic in verse and 
stave, indicates that gongorism, instead of being con- 
fined to literature alone, is, as we have already noted, 


186 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


a symptom of corruption in the whole artistic culture 
of the nation. Victoria, in particular, is so saturated 
with the flamboyant spirit of the Golden Age that 
whether he composed in notes or words, his work al- 
ways shows the eccentric aberrations of a grotesque 
style. 

This hectic manner, whether it consists in the opu- 
lence of words or tones, poetic metaphors or notational 
images, far fetched allusions or harmonic speculations, 
is not confined to any one art but rather to all culture. 
Indeed, it is hard to over-emphasize the necessity for 
distinguishing between a single symptom and the dis- 
ease itself; it is not merely literature that is sick nor 
yet. music, but rather the entire creative life of the 
whole nation which makes itself articulate in letters and 
in notes alike. Since we have seen how close the re- 
semblance is between the gongorism of poetry and this 
fantastic music we have already two general arguments 
for the deeper significance of erratic extravagance in 
the cultural life cycle of the race. Let us now continue 
this search within the provinces of another art. 


IX. ARCHITECTURE AND 
EXTRAVAGANCE 


RCHITECTURE has been described as “frozen 
music,” a term which provokes the discovery 
of analogous tendencies in the two so essen- 
tially subjective arts. Both, truly, exercise 
their appeal upon the emotions through 


harmonious proportions, one existing in sound and 
time and the other in form and space. Some of the 
artistic canons of music invoke physics and mathe- 
matics for their justification, while some of the prin- 
ciples of architecture rest upon geometry, the tacit 
conclusion in either case being that standards based 
upon anything as absolute as mathematics should ac- 
cordingly partake of its invariable perfection. Never- 
theless, in spite of this rather fortuitous alliance be- 
tween art and science, the obvious fact remains that 
physics is not sufficient to explain music, nor geometry, 
architecture. As a matter of fact, that which has been 


[ 187 ] 


188 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


vindicated by time as beautiful and “true” often rests 
upon a contradiction to the mathematically absolute 
ideal. This is because standards of beauty, truth, and 
perfection are merely habits of thought, stabilized, to a 
degree, by convention yet susceptible to the transient 
aberrations of unusual or abnormal environments. 

In the early twilight of art, before esthetic fictions 
had time to be recognized clearly, there have always 
been uncertain and often fantastic gropings. The more 
subjective the art, the more chimerical these early tenta- 
tives appear. Thus, in music we have observed false 
starts in purely onomatopoetic imitation as well as in 
recondite symbolism. The history of architecture like- 
wise affords evidence of monstrosities and bizarre de- 
velopments, such as may be seen in the pyramids, the 
tiger cave at Cuttack, or in the priapic symbolisms of 
certain antique monuments, although the physical diffi- 
culties in the way of architectural construction usually 
prevent the attainment of such erratic extremes in that 
art as are possible in the more flexible medium of music. 
While peculiar tendencies are common enough in primi- 
tive art they are by no means confined to it but rather 
extend throughout all periods, so that we may regard 
the grotesque monuments of architecture much as we 
regard the strange dinosaurs belonging to our geological 
past—as curious though ‘unsuccessful experiments 
strewing their debris along the highways of evolution- 
ary progress. : 


ARCHITECTURAL EXTRAVAGANCE 189 


Yet apart from these sporadic and eccentric develop- 
ments in art, there occur whole eras of great growth 
upon lines which long habit sanctions as proper and 
true. If a work which has been judged proper and true 
possesses further a universality and withal an indi- 
_ viduality, we are wont to hold that such a work has 
vindicated itself before all times and climes. In other 
words if it exerts a strong esthetic appeal upon all sub- 
sequent cultures, at the same time that it bears indelibly 
the impress of the particular national, racial, or cultural 
environment under which it is produced, we hold it as 
an index or standard with which to judge all other 
works. In periods of the greatest artistic achievement, 
when the universality of a people’s spirit is most em- 
bracing and extensive, it is also always most vividly 
individual. It is this intense individuality in such a 
period which makes it extremely sensitive to the tran- 
sient and particular conditions of the cultural environ- 
ment, responding even to unusual stimuli in an exag- 
gerated manner. Cycles of great artistic expression are 
like storms which gather slowly through centuries, 
breaking suddenly with a tremendous thundering and 
with flashes of the sublimest inspiration, only to melt 
away again, after a brief fury, into a melancholy 
drizzle. During the swirl and chaos of the unrestrained 
elements some of the strangest tricks are played, and, 
after the tempest has passed, such freaks naturally at- 
tract the curious and engross them with speculations. 


190 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


We shall now devote our attention not to sporadic 
eccentricities in art but instead to the growth of a 
steady and regular tendency toward freakish and exotic 
embellishment which is such a strong characteristic of 
the magnificent culture of the Golden Age. In letters we 
have traced the genesis of such a tendency and dis- 
covered its culmination in gongorism. It will be our im- 
mediate task to show how the proclivity for ornament 
in architecture undergoes a similar evolution and that 
its various phases synchronize with remarkable accu- 
racy with the corresponding phases of literature. Indeed 
the close pace which the developments of these two arts 
keep with one another—and for that matter all the 
other arts as well—furnishes evidence that the sister 
arts possess the same family characteristics, in spite of 
their various individualities, and, as they grow up, age, 
and decline, manifest the same reactions. 

Already we have referred to the infancy of Spanish 
literature as an epic period because of the dominant 
character of its early monuments. The rude yet heroic 
poems of this age, rising up like strong fortress towers 
above the linguistic anarchy caused by the ruin and 
overthrow of an alien Latin by a free indigenous 
tongue, portray the lusty nature of a new-born, vigor- 
ous culture. Those vociferous sagas glorify deeds of 
witless valor, full of stupendous sword-wallopings, 
everything, subject as well as treatment, being primitive 
and violent to the point of stupidity. In fact, to admire 
these infantile yawpings at all one must assume some- 


MROMITECTURAL EXTRAVAGANCE 191 


thing either of the childishness of the romanticist or 
the dotage of the professional mediaevalist, because the 
epic period—and to it of course the cultured epics of 
men like Dante and Vergil do not belong—is essentially 
boyish in character. Fresh, untutored, and artless its 
productions undoubtedly may be, but on the other hand 
their lack of artistic discipline and rhetorical and im- 
agistic ornament only accentuates their monotony. The 
most that can be said in praise of such pieces is that 
their grim earnestness saves them from the affectations 
so often resulting from following the dangerous ideal 
of beauty for its own sake. 

At the same time that the early Spanish epics came 
into existence, the architecture of the peninsula brought 
forth its first truly indigenous monuments, and how 
well their character conforms with that of the poetry of 
the epic period! Dull and heavy, yet at the same time 
powerful and imposing, the buildings of the pre-ro- 
manesque and romanesque styles may be described as 
sagas in stone. The grim, rude towers of the cathedrals 
of Lerida and Tarragona offer many analogies to the 
Poema del Cid. One even hesitates to call these sullen 
buildings churches instead of fortresses, because their 
frowning turrets, squinting windows narrowed into 
slits, and heavy-jowled embattlements seem better suited 
to summon the faithful to arms than to prayer. The 
atmosphere of the architecture is eloquent of the same 
wearisome, bloody assaults as that of the epic literature, 


192 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


and it possesses the same cold seriousness, want of 
grace and ornament. . 
But a short while elapsed before the infancy of 
Spanish culture waxed into a fuller and more expressive 
youth. In both poetry and architecture the bellicose stu- 
pidity of massy, epic monuments gives way to some- 
thing finer and more delicate, as there comes a strong 
tendency towards the religious, marked by a profounder 
inspiration. Here we cannot, it is true, offer the pious 
quatrains of Berceo as equivalents for the great Span- 
ish-Gothic cathedrals at Burgos, Toledo, and Leon, be- 
cause the obscure monk lacked the advantage of their 
artistic tradition. Nevertheless, the change in the char- 
acter of literature is a change in kind, and if Berceo’s 
verses—verily as extensive as any cathedral—are not as 
impressive as those poems constructed of stone, at least 
they show the leaven of fancy and a swifter imagination 
upon the crudity of the preceding epoch, and signify 
the growth of a new artistic conception just as surely 
as the airy cathedrals, by replacing the squat, formi- 
dable, fort-like churches of the romanesque, give evi- 
dence of the adolescence of Spanish culture with its 
assurance of a deeper spiritual and esthetic awakening. 
Nothing has embodied the beauty, the earnestness, 
and the mysticism of the Middle Ages quite as wonder- 
fully as its magnificent Gothic cathedrals. These monu- 
ments are as universal as art itself and yet the Gothic 
possesses an individuality which expresses the temper 
of particular peoples and bears the impress of their 


ARCHITECTURAL EXTRAVAGANCE 193 


individual characters. Thus the sensuous, rhythmic per- 
fection of the style in Italy would have been impossible 
to the Gallic spirit, while the delicate, fantastic traceries 
of France, in turn, could never have originated in the 
austere culture of the Iberian peninsula. In Spain the 
Gothic cathedrals, for all their French origin, conform 
indubitably to the soul of the people. Notwithstanding 
the existence of these edifices in a land of blazing light, 
the windows of Spain’s churches are narrower and 
more chastely jewelled than those of either Italy or 
France, and the interiors are more sombre, as if they 
shared the dark, intense, religious nature of the Span- 
iard. Furthermore, in that country of realism the very 
foundations and massive walls of the buildings seem to 
grip the earth more firmly. Their steeples and roofs set 
with less lightness than those, say, of the cathedrals of 
France, but on the other hand with a greater sureness 
and staunch soberness. In short, architecture fits like 
a garment of gauzy softness upon the culture of a 
people, accentuating every delicate and changing con- 
tour in its artistic life. 

An inevitable reaction to this new era of spiritual 
and religious purity, as expressed by hagiographic verse 
and Gothic architecture, followed within a few decades. 
Literature shows forewarnings of the coming worldli- 
ness in some of the semi-picaresque cantigas of Al- 
phonso X (1226-1284) ; and the stupendous gusto of 
Juan Ruiz, whose Libro de buen amor (c. 1343) pro- 
claims the exuberant pleasures of carnal living, fur- 


} 


194 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


nishes conclusive proof that the national culture has 
outgrown the mystical yearnings of its adolescence, and 
with a lusty vigor has attained a wider and more ma- 
ture outlook upon life. Architecture, too, during the 
same period, shows an analogous tendency as, by evolv- 
ing the flamboyant style, it forsakes the severe chastity 
cf the Gothic for a sensuous and florid design. The 
long, straight lines in window, pillar, and tower, which 
give to the earlier Gothic such an air of intense, austere 
sublimity, are destroyed by substituting undulating 
curves. The result, of course, is a loss of stiffness and 
a decided gain in vigor and movement, but on the other 
hand, this very movement tends to become excitable, 
and for religious expression its animated, energetic 
architecture is perhaps not as happy as the eternal, 
brooding quiet of the older style. 

As the fourteenth century closes, however, the cul- 
ture of Spain suffers a temporary sickness, or if we 
may return to the analogy of the life cycle of the indi- 
vidual, we may describe it as a period of disillusionment 
intervening between the romantic effervescences of 
youth and the aggressive vigor of sturdy maturity. 
The petulant cynicism of Pero Lopez de Ayala (1332- 
1407) voices for literature the despondency of the 
early part of this stage, and the black depths into which 
the latter part sank is evidenced by the brutal scourging 
of womankind at the hands of Alfonso Martinez de 
Toledo (1398?-1466). Wholly in keeping with this 
spirit of woeful abandon are the unhappy excesses of 


ARCHITECTURAL EXTRAVAGANCE 195 


the flamboyant Gothic. To begin with, the graceful, 
flowing lines of the style were exaggerated so that the 
movement of the design grows to be a desperate, hectic 
movement. Then, as time progresses, the flamboyant 
becomes addicted to the stimulant of extrinsic orna- 
ment, and this, when unrestrained, produces an intoxi- 
cated effusiveness. Finally, the extreme accentuation of 
wobbly lines gives the style an air of tipsy exhilaration 
until it loses its equilibrium altogether in a whirl of 
giddy volutes and supercilious frills. 

Juan de Mena (1411-1456), as we observed, fur- 
nishes the first pronounced example of gongoristic ex- 
travagance in literature. It is significant that architec- 
ture comes forward only two decades later with a 
parallel in the garish church of San Juan de los Reyes 
at Toledo. The great profusion of detail within this edi- 
fice is comparable, especially in its ill-assorted jumbling, 
to Mena’s piebald vocabulary and dislocated syntax. 
Again, the grotesque ornaments piled up everywhere in 
the building are much like his bizarre hyperboles, while 
the pedantry and occult circumlocutions of his verses 
find their counterparts in the heavy, florid decorations, 
statues, daises, and monstrous blazons stuck at the ends 
of the transept, or the fantastic pillars grilled with 
sumptuous niches and stuffed with complicated orna- 
ments, such as abound in the cloister. 

Fortunately, with the Renaissance a fresh, strong 
current sweeps into the stagnating reaches of the late 
Middle Ages. The coming era is no longer to be satis- 


196 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


fied with the maundering reproaches of philosophic in- 
troverts nor the conventional: emotions of polished 
lyrists. Life becomes complex and vivid, something full 
of violent contrasts, and it is small wonder then that 
we find architecture growing correspondingly dramatic 
and vigorous. Italy is the channel through which the 
new stimulus reaches Spanish letters, and it also fur- 
nishes Spanish architecture with the basis for a new 
design in the estilo romano, better known as the plater- 
esque. This gorgeous style, named because of its re- 
semblance to articles made of beaten silver, owes its 
esthetic justification to the brilliant contrast produced 
by placing small areas of rich carving against surfaces 
of blank smoothness. Although this general conception 
of the plateresque came from Italy, we should by no 
means consider the Spanish version of the style a color- 
less imitation, for it underwent a radical change. In the 
Italian plateresque, floral designs, sensuous, delicate, 
and usually conventionalized, furnish the ornamental 
motifs, but such pretty, leafy nothings are not vigorous 
enough to satisfy the passionate intensity of the Span- 
ish temperament. Accordingly, architecture quickly re- 
sponds to the demands of Iberian culture and substi- 
tutes animals in attitudes of tense action for flowers 
and foliage, at the same time executing them in bolder 
and more vivid relief. Thus the contrast of ornament 
against a flat background’ grows much stronger and 
more startling in the Spanish plateresque than in the 
Italian. 


ARCHITECTURAL EXTRAVAGANCE 197 


Nevertheless, this sharpness of contrast depends upon 
the exercise of severe restraint in the proportion of 
ornament to the surface on which it is used, and restraint 
is not a characteristic of Spanish culture of the Renais- 
sance. The blank monotony of a wall must be preserved 
to act as a foil for the splendor of whatever ornament 
is superimposed. When incontinent carving succeeds 
in covering the smooth, chaste surface, an esthetic rape 
is committed; the virtue of the plateresque is forever 
destroyed and the result is a meretricious architecture 
of no artistic purity. In Spain the tendency toward 
unrestrained opulence in the plateresque is evident from 
the time that the style comes in with the Renaissance, 
and it increases in intensity until, by the time Philip II 
comes to the throne (1556), there is a positive lust 
for effusive ostentation. 

We may illustrate this proclivity for embellishment 
run wild by two examples of extreme profusion in 
architecture, and compare them to the contemporary ex- 
amples of ornamental bizarrerie in literature by Juan de 
Padilla, Fernando de Rojas, and Vasco Diaz de Frex- 
enal. The Casas Consistoriales (1527-1564) at Seville, 
by Diego Riana and Juan Sanchez illustrate the failure 
of the sumptuous plateresque to preserve sufficient back- 
ground to hold its design in free relief. All is plums and 
no pudding, because the entire facade is spattered over 
with miscellaneous plaques, statues, scrolls, and knobs 
giving it the frosty appearance of a huge wedding cake. 
The other instance of grotesque and riotous ornament 


198 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


is furnished by the Casa Zaporta [see plate VI], for- 
merly at Saragossa but now in Paris, whose ornate patio, 
finished by Tudelilla about 1551, is the epitome of the 
exaggerated taste of the period. This galleried court is 
supported by eight richly decorated columns with stren- 
uously extended capitals, figured lintels, and large 
cross-beams covered profusely with plaster bas-reliefs. 
Above is a balcony, equally bedizened with medallions, 
showing busts of knights, and it is full of ballustered 
pillars together with semi-circular arches and wide, 
overhanging, carved eaves. Three styles, Gothic, mude- 
jar, and plateresque mix here without blending, and we 
may compare the discordant medley to the hyperbates 
and neologisms of gongorism, since two of the archj- 
tectural styles have not yet been assimilated with the 
current idiom of the plateresque. Moreover, we may 
sustain the analogy by comparing the grotesque meta- 
phors of gongorism to the torsoed columns whose 
statues emerge from an indistinct flourish of scrolls, 
and whose heads are crowned with capitals bearing 
cherubs, eagles, and a conglomeration of smaller flora 
and fauna. We should note, however, that the orna- 
mental details of the Casas Consistoriales and the Casa 
Zaporta, if considered separately, are often vivid and of 
excellent artistry, proving that the exuberant age was 
not yet decadent but only irrepressibly magnificent. 

As the over-sumptuous architecture of the sixteenth 
century was about to culminate in an immense flourish 
of noisy ornaments, its fanfaronades were suddenly 


ARCHITECTURAL EXTRAVAGANCE 199 


interrupted by the intolerance of one man, Philip II 
(1556-1598). Ruling for nearly half a century, this 
saturnine monarch passed a law forbidding the erection 
of any public edifice unless the plans were first approved 
by his architect, Herrera. As a result, there was estab- 
lished a sort of architectural inquisition that was prose- 
cuted with the most despotic severity. Ornamentation, 
fancy, and grace were looked upon as heresy, and all 
plans containing the same were peremptorily consigned 
to the flames. Thus at the end of his long reign Philip 
could boast ‘not only that he had spared not a single 
heretic, but that he had also prevented the erection of a 
single beautiful building. 

The sullen, pessimistic style which became the official 
architectural religion under Herrera and his ruler, is 
symbolized by their most famous monument, the Es- 
corial. It is impossible to deny a certain pedantic sol- 
emnity and stern grandeur in this melancholy mass of 
granite, which at once reflects the morbid nature of 
the king and the supreme power of the Golden Age, 
already imminent. On the other hand, it emphasizes too 
forcibly the austerer side of Spanish character which, 
although dominant in the harsh monarch, is gradually 
thawing before the intense brilliance of a period of 
dawning splendor. The frigid, formal style of Herrera 
directly opposes those magnificent ornamental gestures 
that are invariably a part of the superabundant vigor 
of every great, creative age. We have already noted, 
from the early Renaissance to the mid-sixteenth cen- 


200 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


tury, how the trend toward unrestrained embellishment 
becomes more and more noticeable in the plateresque, 
because this eager desire for dazzling, dramatic beauty 
is part and parcel of the maturing grandeur of the cul- 
ture of the coming Golden Age. Now we see it arrested 
in architecture, and by the despotism of one man we 
find this important art for the first time failing to keep 
in sympathy with the spirit of the nation’s culture. The 
other arts remain in the ranks of that brilliant proces- 
sion which parades with such blare and glory into the 
triumphant splendor of the Golden Age. Only architec- 
ture, stript of its rightful decorations, halts, sullen and 
silent, by the way. 

Yet not forever: just as the libertinage of the Eng- 
lish Restoration came as an explosion sequent to the 
clamping down of natural safety valves during the 
boilings of an earlier period, so after Philip’s death 
the lid was off for architecture. The resultant outburst 
was not a splendid gesture of spontaneous opulence but 
rather an unnatural, orgiastic extravagance. By this 
time architecture had arrived at the period of its fullest 
maturity, it now possessed the unlimited freedom of its 
whole estate, and it might enter upon a magnificent 
and productive career that should redound to the glory 
of the Golden Age even as did the other arts. As a 
matter of fact, architecture did nothing of the kind, 
spending its forces instead in prodigal excesses and 
upon unworthy objects. Like a subject nation suddenly 
possessed of liberty, or like a boorish pauper fallen 


ARCHITECTURAL EXTRAVAGANCE 201 


heir to unexpected millions, architecture shows the evil 
effects of Philip’s repression by concentrating its whole 
vigor upon ornamental details which are only accessory 
or even wholly extrinsic to some mediocre design, in- 
stead of centering its energy upon an inspiring plan 
that would make opulence a complement—a means, al- 
though a splendid one, to a greater artistic end. Philip’s 
Escorial is all design with no ornament to speak of; 
it is almost an abstract idea without any of the divert- 
ing motifs of fancy to disturb its august, trance-like 
poise. Now the conditions are reversed; there is little 
or no idea of design but much florid decoration. Just 
as Gongora conceals his paucity of thought in a welter 
of images, so architecture cheats the age with its un- 
worthy embellishments, its lack of genuine creativeness. 

The baroque style, overcharged with ornamentation 
and meaningless scroll work, becomes immensely and 
immediately popular. Here, in our comparison of archi- 
tecture with literature, if we liken one of Spain’s great 
novels or dramas to one of her supreme cathederals, 
we may with justice say that the baroque is to archi- 
tecture what the gongoristic lyric is to literature—a 
limited field which encourages undue attention to ele- 
gance of detail, a field so limited in fact that mere 
elegance soon becomes insufficient to hold interest. The 
details are then, perforce, made more arresting to com- 
pensate for the waning interest of the monument, until 
at length they become bizarre and outlandish, and seem 
even more so because of the very littleness of the artistic 


202 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


scope. As the baroque grows older it becomes more and 
more encrusted with superficial carving, its scrolls and 
knobs swell to alarming proportions and finally upset 
the architectural equilibrium of the whole. 

After the mid-seventeenth century and far down 
into the next, architecture, like literature, loses all 
shreds of vigor and sinks into a period of senile degen- 
eracy. The grotesque ornamental flourishes with which 
this feeble architecture smears its edifices, in an at- 
tempt to counterfeit the healthy exuberance of earlier 
days, resemble the false curls and cosmetics whereby 
elderly persons seek to conceal their years. Such arti- 
ficial disguises, at least in architecture, deceive no one, 
but on the contrary rather accentuate the pathetic in- 
decency and ugliness of old age. Thus, when the decor- 
ative excrescences of the baroque are so exaggerated 
that the style no longer, in its later decades, resembles 
its early aspect and a new name, the churriguesque, has 
to be given to designate the artistical cancers which 
further disfigure it, we can be sure that we behold an 
art far entered on the declining cycle of its existence. 

The best illustration of this degenerate architecture 
is afforded by the Puente de Toledo at Madrid. Fin- 
ished possibly about 1735 though begun as early as 
1632, this monstrosity covers the deplorable period 
when in literature José de Leon y Mansilla was pub- 
lishing his third Soledad in continuation of Gongora’s, 
and Gerardo Lobo was giving vent to his bizarre jar- 
goning. The nine enormous arches of this bridge, span- 


Aeon ITeECTURAL EXTRAVAGANCE 203 


ning the feeble trickle of the Manzanares, seem 
symbolical of the heavy pedantic affectations thrown 
up by contemporary poetry over the dried-up channel 
of a once torrential stream of genius. Moreover, the 
fantastic metaphors of this late gongoristic poetry are 
fittingly matched by the perverted decorations upon the 
bridge, for at both ends stand two deformed “obe- 
lisks’’ bedecked with a conglomeration of warts, knobs, 
spikes, and nondescript protuberances. Midway of the 
structure the caterer’s art is apparent in some stone 
frosting covering two hideous templetes within whose 
oppressive masses, upon mighty pedestals, repose statues 
dwarfed to utter insignificance. The whole unwieldly 
bulk of the edifice, with its bombastic posturing, sig- 
nifying absolutely nothing as a work of art, only proves 
again that the life of architecture was almost run and 
that the culture of the nation, which had before been 
so gloriously articulate in the poetry of stone, was now 
sunk into a meaningless dotage. 

Thus we see how, in a broad and general way at 
least, the development of architecture pursues a close 
parallel with that of literature. This of course is not 
because either of the arts exerts any direct influence 
upon the other, but because both are media of great 
flexibility for the dominant expression of a people’s 
culture. This culture, we may again observe, matures 
in passing through phases having distinct aspects, 
resembling the stages of growth in an _ individual 
so closely that the picturesque analogy of the life of 


204 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


culture to that of the individual is quite justified. 
Architecture, like letters or music, or indeed any of the 
arts, reflects the aspect of the various stages of the 
cultural cycle with great fidelity. In the maturity of the 
evolution of art, when the spirit of the race is endowed 
with greater vigor than at any other time, there is a 
certain superfluity in its buoyant strength which is 
manifested by the taste for luxuriant embellishment. 
This taste, during or just prior to the Golden Age, we 
have noted in literature’s predilection for imagistic 
extravagance, in music’s passion for ornamental vo- 
lutes, and finally in architecture’s tendency toward 
florid decoration. Since sculpture is such a close ac- 
cessory to the ornamental side of architecture, it is 
quite probable that in this field, too, we may find the 
same conformity to the spirit of culture that we have 
observed in poetry, music, and building, and in addition, 
during the Golden Age, the same tendency toward 
uncontrolled exuberance. 


et @ @ © fa re 


X. THE GROTESQUE IN SCULPTURE 


O ALL but the rudest architecture sculpture 
is such an indispensable accessory that 
we may divide its empire roughly into 
two provinces, calling the one which most 
) appertains to the domain of architecture 
architectural sculpture, because it furnishes the orna- 
mental levies so essential to the dominant unity of a 
magnificent structural design, and the other, inde- 
pendent sculpture, because it exists without the domi- 
nant influence of another art. This division, however, 
is only one of convenience because actually the two 
categories merge, since architecture and sculpture them- 
selves are intimately related. 

In architectural sculpture the same regular develop- 
ment towards opulence can be observed in Spain, as 
the art matures, that we have already noted in the 
progress of architecture. Yet, as the growing tendency 
towards splendor makes itself felt, architectural sculp- 
ture becomes less and less dependent upon architecture 
until it finally emancipates itself, although still, in 
theory, an accessory. By the time the Golden Age is 
reached, this architectural sculpture becomes so vigor- 


[ 205 ] 


206 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


ous and attains such prominence that the eye is ar- 
rested by its individuality before it perceives the wider 
structural lines to which it should be subordinate. 
After the majestic splendor of the classic age has passed, 
the secession has become complete, architecture no 
longer being powerful enough to keep its sculptural 
dependencies in subjection. On the other hand, archi- 
tectural sculpture rapidly loses its strength and spon- 
taneity and eventually sinks into an impotent and 
bizarre decadence. Consequently, during the late seven- 
teenth and early eighteenth centuries there is no longer 
any equilibrium between ornament and design, and all ~ 
that is left of the pristine glory of architecture and 
sculpture is a crumbling, tarnished splendor marred by 
vulgar, incompetent repairs. 

As in the early beginnings of architecture, so too in 
the architectural sculpture of Spain, there are occa- 
sional monuments so extravagant as to appear entirely 
outside the norm of what should be expected from the 
rudeness of a primitive period. Two capitals in the 
cloister of the church of Santo Domingo de Silos (c. 
1076) furnish illustrations of this. Completely covered 
with a hodge-podge of monsters paired off, back to 
back and face to face, the fantastic capitals present an 
extraordinary appearance. Harpies with women’s heads, 
jackals and eagles devouring animals are carved so 
curiously that it is with some justice that the French 
critic, Emile Berteaux, affirms that the monument has 


¢ 


THE GROTESQUEIN SCULPTURE 207 


nothing in common with European art. It is, indeed, one 
of those sporadic examples of bizarrerie, somewhat 
similar “to the “sports” of zoology, whose existence 
cannot satisfactorily be explained. So grotesque it is 
that one might be justified in describing it as “gongor- 
istic’ but for the fact that it can claim no logical place 
in the cycle culminating in flamboyant opulence. 

Not until the thirteenth century do we find any pro- 
nounced development in architectural sculpture towards 
extravagance that can be regarded with assurance as 
constituting a part in a regular cycle. There is a certain 
Templar’s tomb in the church of the Magdaline at 
Zamora that deserves prominence for no other reason 
than that it affords the first example of the grotesque 
in truly Spanish art. There the dead knight is repre- 
sented lying upon a veritable bed while weird reliefs 
above portray his naked soul being carried off to glory 
by two angels, flanked in turn by two others much 
larger. A monstrous dais covers the tomb, supported by 
fantastically carved columns covered with an inextri- 
cable tangle of strange shapes. The whole monument is 
crowned by towers representing the face of a fortress 
and its under surface is fretted so as to give the im- 
pression of Moorish wood-carvings. 

As the centuries progress, architectural sculpture 
grows much more elaborate and examples of its ex- 
travagance occur with greater frequency. One of the 
most pronounced of these, assuredly, is the mausoleum 
of Lope Fernandez de Luna built during the fourteenth 


208 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


century, first because of the prolixity and exuberance of 
the numerous small figtires looking down upon the 
sumptuously robed effigy, and secondly because of the 
cupola raised above it, covered with gilt stalactites and 
tiny bits of garish, multicolored glass. More opulent, 
still, is the incongruous jumble of Gothic and Moorish in 
the choir of the church of San Juan de los Reyes at To- 
ledo. In no other church in Europe can there be found a 
phalanx of armorial bearings so inordinately large and 
so monotonous in their elaborate uniformity, quartered, 
crowned, and floridly crested. Below the blatant shields 
are what seem to be lion supporters, dwarfed, however, 
to the size of barn rats. Between each coat of arms, 
so noisy with mundane vanities, are squeezed timid 
little full-length figures of saints and holy men, belittled 
and over-awed, so that they seem as small and incon- ~ 
sequential as dolls, images that certainly should have 
been accorded the dominant position in the scheme. A 
profusion of carving surrounds statue and escutcheon, 
but in spite of the great beauty and intricacy in the 
workmanship, the carving destroys what little unity 
might have remained. Even the majestic columns at 
the corners of the interior are so richly engraved as to 
lose the strength and austerity so essential to the Gothic 
design. Here, in short, we see architectural sculpture 
beginning to usurp the prominence rightfully belonging 
to the unity and definition of architecture. The effect 
is similar to that so often to be felt in a room artistic- 
ally designed but so plastered with lurid wall paper and 


THE GROTESQUEIN SCULPTURE 209 


cluttered with incongruous pictures that its proportions 
are obscured. 

With this comparison in mind, if in addition we 
imagine the room to be overcrowded with large pieces 
of ornate furniture, we shall gain something of the 
impression produced by the massing of great tombs, 
screens, and especially retables in the interiors of the 
churches and cathedrals of Spain. In the magnificent 
examples of the fifteenth century and later, sculpture 
no longer plays a subordinate role but rather makes 
architecture subservient, since the retables are often 
miniature edifices or facades constructed of nothing but 
carvings, the architectural arrangement serving only 
for their display. Indeed the architecture of the whole 
church sometimes is relegated to a very inferior place 
by contrast to their vivid magnificence. In such cases a 
cathedral seems to have no more importance than a 
barn whose whole purpose is to shelter the glory of the 
sculpture within. 

We may mention a few of these priceless retables, 
peculiar to no other country of the world but Spain, in 
order to note the progressive steps in the growing pas- 
sion for gorgeous ornament that reached a consumma- 
tion in the Golden Age. The enormous piece in the ca- 
thedral at Seville, begun in 1482 by Dancart and finished 
by him in 1492, was the first to surpass, both in richness 
of carving and gilding, all previous ones in the peninsula. 
Yet even this is quickly eclipsed by the retable in the 
church of Miraflores finished in 1499 by Gil de Siloé. 


210 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Fashioned of wood, painted and gilded, this intricate 
work stands out from the richest examples of work- 
manship before it by reason of its incredible super- 
abundance of detail. Nevertheless, in spite of its tumul- 
tuous carving, it retains an impressive unity, inasmuch 
as the central figure, a crucifix surrounded by a roseate 
garland of angels, stands out clearly from a maze of 
saints and heavenly beings, medallions, and armorial 
bearings that leave no surface blank. Truly something 
of the inexpressible glory of Paradise is suggested by 
this resplendent retable with its flaming angel wings 
and sweeping hosts of heavenly beings. Extreme opu- 
lence it is, to be sure, and overwrought with imagery, 
but like much of the magnificence produced during the 
early maturity of a classical age, it is a splendor articu- 
late with a spiritual message and not a meaningless, 
vulgar pomp. 

Other retables might be noted, that carved in stone 
at the church of San Nicolas in Burgos in particular, 
since it is more opulent than any yet mentioned. How- 
ever, these examples alone will indicate the great im- 
petus given to profusion in ornamentation by the end 
of the fifteenth century. Needless to say, the tendency 
continues with increasing vigor through the Golden 
Age, but by that time the separate figures comprising 
an architectural sculpture attain such pronounced in- 
dividuality that they deserve to be discussed as inde- 
pendent sculpture. The only change in the general 
character of architectural sculpture during the classical 


THE GROTESQUE IN SCULPTURE 2ll 


period that should bear emphasis is the greater stren- 
uousness in the arrangement of sculptural groups and 
a more vociferous posturing of individual figures. In 
addition might be noted a growing taste for prolix and 
vulgar detail with florid coloring and gilding, such as 
distinguishes the high altar of the convent of San 
Martin [see plate VII], delicacy of touch already be- 
ing sacrificed to startling and exaggerated designs, 
with a corresponding loss in esthetic appeal. 

During the latter part of the seventeenth century and 
throughout the first half of the next, unmistakable 
signs appear of decadence and loss of creative vigor. 
Retables, instead of filling large spaces by rising to 
the occasion with some heroic unity of design, simply 
multiply smaller units and details to take up the de- 
sired area, thereby producing a sort of chaotic, crazy- 
quilt effect. To conceal this artistic impotence the 
sculptor frequently adds a wild profusion of mean- 
ingless flowery garlands and delirious scrolls until the 
work becomes bizarre to the point of tawdriness. No 
better example of the exaggerated architectural sculp- 
ture characteristic of the eighteenth century can be 
found than the Transparente, an altar completed in 
1732 by Narciso Tomé in the cathedral of Toledo [see 
plate VIII]. This barbaric monstrosity has aptly 
been described as a fricasée de marbre on account of 
the innumerable, meaningless cherubs plastered with 
indiscriminate taste over the monument, together with 
the garishly gilt rays of light striking through them 


212 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


like porcupine quills, and the giddy swirl of scrolls and 
volutes disturbing what little repose is left to the 
design. 

The predilection for florid display becomes so em- 
phatic during subsequent decades that the churches of 
Spain are fairly choked with trumpery ornaments. A 
litter of altar screens, retables, and tombs sprawl over 
the precious flooring until that impression of sublime 
immensity, the dominant note of a cathedral interior— 
the feeling of vastness and power produced upon the 
emotions by long uninterrupted vistas—is completely 
destroyed. Furthermore, the decorative pieces them- 
selves are of a very vulgar, tawdry character: iron 
altar screens that look as if they were made of gilded 
gas pipe, tombs and retables so full of fluttering marble 
cherubs that only a little chicken-wire is wanting to 
complete the impression of an overstocked hen-coop. 
In short, the house of God resembles a blaring charity 
bazaar or, worse, the counters of a five and ten cent 
store cluttered with offensive fripperies. Here if any- 
where, there is a crying need for a cleansing of the 
temple and a sweeping out and overturning of its in- 
solent vanities. 

It is not difficult to discover resemblances between 
the overcharged embellishments of architectural sculp- 
ture and the welter of images in contemporary 
gongorism. If we turn now to independent sculp- 
ture, we shall notice further analogies because there, 
too, the grotesque tropes of literature find almost per- 


THE GROTESQUE IN SCULPTURE 213 


fect counterparts. It will be advisable, however, in the 
treatment of this province of sculpture, to ignore its 
earlier history. Spanish sculpture being largely ecclesi- 
astical, the primitive examples of independent sculpture 
are really not very independent but rather constitute 
important motifs in the decoration of capitals, effigies 
of tombs, and details of retables, and therefore, to some 
extent at least, are still accessory ornaments to cathe- 
dral architecture. Hence, the history of the early devel- 
opment of independent sculpture is so closely bound 
up with that of architectural sculpture, already dis- 
cussed, that we may dismiss as unimportant its earlier 
tendencies toward a definite character. It is only by the 
end of the fifteenth century, then, that sculpture attains 
a sufficiently distinctive personality for us to consider 
its productions apart as independent sculpture. We shall 
begin therefore, in our survey of this province of the 
art, with the early sixteenth century and continue it as 
far as the eighteenth, since it is in that period especi- 
ally that we shall find enough fantastic aberrations in 
individual compositions to offer significant analogies 
to the singular metaphors and linguistic distortions of 
gongorism. 

We have already had the occasion to use the word 
“baroque,” somewhat loosely to be sure, in reference 
to tendencies in art which sacrifice fidelity in objective 
form to secure novelty and surprise in expression. Thus 
we may call Gongora’s grotesque metaphors “‘baroque”’ 
because the poet’s main purpose seems to be to startle 


214 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


the reader by unusual figures, at the sacrifice of the 
true poetic theme or the dominant idea. When the 
Spanish Homer, for example, uses the phrase, “a cliff 
is urinating” to describe a waterfall, the result is a 
bizarre figure, certainly unusual enough to swerve the 
reader’s attention either from waterfalls or whatever 
place waterfalls might rightfully claim in the poetry, 
and direct it wholly upon metaphorical mountebankery 
instead. Likewise in music we may speak of the ex- 
trinsic variations upon the theme, the trills, tremolos, 
grace notes, runs, and volutes, as “baroques’” because 
they play no essential part in the development of the 
theme but rather destroy its unity. In architecture the 
word “baroque” has a more specific meaning, referring 
there to a style overcharged with superficial decorative 
motifs, scrolls, plaques, medallions, knobs, and flowery 
garlands—an ornamental insincerity usually covering 
bad design or unimaginative architecture. In sculpture, 
however, and also later on in the discussion of painting, 
we must endow the term “baroque” with a still fuller 
meaning. 

There it should signify a surcharging of emotion 
rather than decoration, although the latter is nearly 
always present at the same time. In short, baroque 
sculpture is a style characterized by tumultuous and 
unrestrained passion, with attitudes of sudden move- 
ment and dramatic action. Sharp contrasts of light and 
shade, bold carving, and swirling lines further mark 
the style and endow it with a grandiose impressiveness. 


THE GROTESQUE IN SCULPTURE. 215 


Nevertheless, the very qualities constituting the virtue 
of the baroque easily become exaggerated until the 
result is grotesque caricature. Frenzied attitudes, in 
this way, become convulsive, or degenerate still further 
into mere contortions and absurd mannerisms. More- 
over, the emphasis upon action is itself likely to pro- 
duce hysteria, and in addition, being disproportionate 
to the demands of the subject, insincere. Then again, 
the brilliant, grand-operatic effect of the style is apt to 
become blatant and super-scenic until it sinks into noth- 
ing better than theatrical clap-trap. 

A peculiar feature of the baroque, undoubtedly one 
of the results of its unrestraint, is the common disre- 
gard of the artist for his medium. Vivid effects are 
attained by painting and gilding the figures, creating 
thereby what is known as polychrome statuary. Occa- 
sionally the artist goes further and uses multi-colored 
_marbles—wavy yellow marble for the hair, for example, 
blue marble for the eyes, coral for the lips, etc. Unfor- 
tunately, the sculptor, once overstepping his art in the 
craze for daring and bizarre effects, does not always 
know where to stop and so calls upon all sorts of adven- 
titious aids: real cloth for clothing, leather for shoes, 
genuine jewelry, real hair, and even glass beads for 
tears. This false emphasis upon reality—or perhaps it 
would be better to use Aristotle’s distinction and say’ 
the mistake of confusing actuality with reality—often 
results in the production of statuary resembling noth- 


216 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


ing higher than the dressmaker’s manikins in a store 
window. | 

In Spain, baroque sculpture contains all the vices as 
well as most of the virtues of the style, although it may 
be observed that in general, just before the Golden 
Age, there is considerable restraint, and, in polychrome 
statuary, sober coloring prevails. As soon, however, 
as the sumptuous century took possession of art, it 
endowed sculpture with a magnificent largesse, the re- 
sult being a much greater vivacity in posture and col- 
or, with unmistakable tendencies toward extrava- 
gance. Rapidly exaggerations develop so that by the 
early decades of the seventeenth century spontaneity 
yields to license and the creative vigor of sculpture is 
gradually dissipated through the predilection for un- 
natural postures and meretricious colorings. Finally, 
when the great century ends and the creative spirit 
expires, the baroque undergoes a marked degeneracy, 
carrying to extremes all the ugly vices of insincere ex- 
pression and abnormal ostentation, the strong vener- 
ation of realism not even saving sculpture from the 
distortions of ridiculous caricature. 

The first important sculptor in Spain to exaggerate 
the baroque is Alonzo Berruguete (1490 ?-1527), some- 
times called El maestro de la pasién because of the 
vehement intensity infused into his religious subjects. 
Although a pupil of Michael Angelo, and exhibiting 
much of the animation and power of his master, this 
artist quite oversteps the bounds of verisimilitude. 


Tie GROTESQUE IN SCULPTURE 217 


Moreover, unlike the great Italian, Berruguete is uni- 
lateral; that is to say, he portrays one emotion only 
and not a complexity. Undoubtedly this is a contrib- 
uting factor to his exaggerated style because he is 
thereby able to concentrate all his feeling upon the 
expression of a single emotion, and this of course must 
result in extreme accentuation. Because of this, none 
of Berruguete’s figures are true types of life, but rather 
give the impression of being symbols, startling and elo- 
quent no doubt, of a single emotion. Just as ideographic 
symbols, after coming to represent an idea instead of 
an objective imitation, by degrees become simpler 
through the loss of unessential details and the stressing 
of salient traits, so too, the half-symbolic sculptures of 
this particular artist ignore all the little distinguishing 
characteristics of reality that do not contribute to the 
single expressed emotion, while those that do are so 
overdrawn as to sever all connection with reality. It 
is this process which makes Berruguete’s figures almost 
caricatures of emotion. By certain configurations and 
attitudes the sculptor obtains powerful effects, but.in 
seeking further to intensify the effect, he impresses the 
configuration more deeply and wrenches the attitude 
more forcibly, with the unfortunate result—so notice- 
able with Gongora’s images as well—that the attention 
is arrested not by the effect but by the means, the mere 
artistical machinery, so to speak, through which the 
effect is attempted. The artist’s methods, thus exag- 
-gerated, become mannerisms, nay, unpleasant eccen- 


218 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


tricities that can be endured only because of his sin- 
cerity and genius, even though this sincerity and genius 
do seem to emanate from a fanatic rather than a rea- 
sonable being. 

Let us observe the means by which Berruguete se- 
cures such spectacular effects. To begin with, he length- 
ens his figures a full head or more, thereby foreshadow- 
ing the spectral elongations of the later painter, El 
Greco. By this stretching, the sculptor, almost mechan- 
ically, secures a tone of unreality, a spiritual subjec- 
tivity that is quite appropriate to religious subjects. 
The obvious danger from this distortion is that the 
resultant figure might look too delicate, weak, or even 
worse, effeminate. Berruguete saw this peril only too 
well and, in order to counteract it, endows all his sub- 
jects with tremendous musculature. Right here, then, 
we have an inconsistency—a hyperbate, we may call it, 
in the syntax of his art—in the mouldings of a nervous, 
wiry body, wasted away by much prayer and fasting, 
with, at the same time, the bulging biceps, pectorals, 
and thighs of a coal-passer. The absurd combination 
has, of course, no objective reality, but it may be given 
some esthetic sanction since it does convey, subjectively 
at least, the conviction of a mighty spiritual frenzy. 

The dynamic sweep of the sculptor’s compositions is 
obtained by the trick of always posturing them in atti- 
tudes of tense action. By a violent writhing of the torso, 
twisting back of the head and neck, and clutching and 
clawing of the fingers of his figures, he gives them a 


THE GROTESQUE IN SCULPTURE 219 


superhuman energy and dramatic impetuosity. Ob- 
viously the attitudes are untrue; in fact in the majority 
of cases it may well be objected that the subject does 
not even balance on a single foot—in the case of the San 
Benito Sebastidn, upon neither. Furthermore, the con- 
vulsive postures are incompatible with the very actions 
they would portray, as is the case with the Toledo 
Moses. Yet here once more, in spite of technical insin- 
cerity, we may observe that the strength of Berruguete’s 
genius is such that no impression is felt of untruth in 
design or insincerity of purpose. 

Unrealistic too, yet also excusable because of its 
subjective meaning, is the sculptor’s delineation of 
joints, bones, and tendons. As a young man Berruguete 
began his studies in anatomical sculpture by dissecting 
dead bodies. The result of this training shows itself in 
the pronounced definition given to his musculature and 
in fact to all the usually hidden mechanics of the body. 
Most of his figures are carved as if the skin had been 
removed, the ligatures of the neck, wrists, and ankles 
being especially prominent, as are also the joints of the 
fingers and toes. Indeed Berruguete represents certain 
ligaments, such as the intermetatarsal, which cannot be 
seen save when skin and considerable flesh are re- 
moved. All these anatomical secrets, when brought to 
light, give a ghoulishness not altogether inappropriate 
in depicting ascetic, holy men. Similarly the taut ten- 
dons and strained muscles, when carved upon Ber- 
ruguete’s ecstatic fanatics, are quite in keeping with the 


220 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


hyper-nervous temperaments with which we usually 
credit them, though it must be admitted that this hair- 
trigger tension is often painful to look upon. 

Yet the most eccentric feature of the artist’s sculp- 
ture is its coloring. Wood being his favorite medium, 
some sort of painting was essential to prevent warping 
and cracking. The Spanish propensity for realism wel- 
comed this coloring, and polychrome statuary became 
immensely popular though, as we have already noted, 
this same realism at first keeps the hues within the 
bounds of truth. Berruguete’s tints, on the contrary, 
are as lurid and unnatural as his attitudes. The pink 
upon the lips of his figures, for example, becomes a 
violent, whorish vermillion, and their hair a brilliant, 
burnished gold. Obviously, this again is a departure 
from verisimilitude, but once more we must insist that 
the sculptor’s art was largely subjective, and in en- 
deavoring to make the image secondary to the idea or 
emotion, his fantastic coloring by its very intensity 
accentuates the unearthly splendor of his symbols, 
making them yet more abstract. 

The most frenzied examples of the artist’s bizarre 
sculpture are to be seen in the separate figures compris- 
ing the famous San Benito retable (1527-1533), now 
in the museum at Valladolid. Of these perhaps the most 
famous is the Sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham {see 
plate IX] although it is by no means the most mannered 
or bizarre. Less robust than most of Berruguete’s sub- 
jects, the towering figure of Abraham suggests, never- 


THE GROTESQUEIN SCULPTURE 221 


theless, powerful, spiritual passion, and the twist of 
the head further accentuates its intensity. With a few 
bold strokes the sculptor represents the torment of a 
great soul; the patriarch turns his face to God with 
an expression of supreme despair while a cry of anguish 
escapes from his lips as he makes ready for the su- 
preme sacrifice. Upon the countenance of Isaac there 
is neither love nor resignation, but only terror in the 
screaming mouth and drawn eyes. 

The glaring defects of the composition scarcely need 
to be indicated. The emotions are all theatrical, strident, 
and disconcerting, and as to the attitudes, they are false 
from the wrench of the neck down to the long, left 
foot scarcely touching the ground, the spasmodic kick 
contrasting so strangely with the lax hands and arms. 
Especially the facial expressions approach the clap-trap 
of cheap melodrama, with its gallery convulsions, 
mouthings, and rantings, so far removed from sober 
reality. Abraham’s passion lies largely upon the surface 
and in spite of its dramatic intensity loses much of the 
quiet yet profound depression produced by overwhelm- 
ing tragedy. The only quality that prevents the com- 
position from sinking into grotesque caricature is the 
flaming earnestness Berruguete infuses into it, for in 
spite of its flamboyant emotionalism the composition 
seems genuinely to be alive. 

Yet even this earnestness cannot save from deserved 
ridicule the horrible contortions of the St. Jerome in 
the same retable [see plate X]. Upon enormous fists 


222 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


the thin finger bones and knuckles stand out so sharply 
that the hands resemble the webbed feet of a duck. An 
undersized head, with cauliflower ears and a damp 
tongue of beard, rests upon a lean neck which seems 
to have been given an upward jerk by some awkwardly 
fitted gibbet. And truly, to judge from the revolting 
expression, the production might well represent the 
hanging of some gallows-bird rather than the genuine 
ecstasy of a professional saint. Finally, the magnificent 
chest and shoulders, bulging with muscles of heroic 
proportions, seem unpardonably inconsistent with what 
we know of this learned ecclesiastic whose body was 
wasted away by disease and long vigils. 

With the following decades a wild unrestraint seizes 
baroque sculpture, exaggerating yet further the super- 
ficial grimaces and contortions of emotion, and always 
at the sacrifice of truth and sincerity. Such boisterous- 
ness, from the fact that its lusty vigor resembles an 
animal exuberance rather than a spiritual frenzy, is 
quite antagonistic to the intense religious fervor so 
peculiar to Spanish art and so boldly accentuated by 
Berruguete. For this reason sculpture grows increas- 
ingly florid and even blatant, the only quality that saves 
it from downright vulgarity being the superabundant 
energy often observed as the dominant characteristic 
of every great, creative age. Thus, while the lusty ex- 
‘cesses of art are to be condemned by all the canons of 
classical restraint, they are nevertheless glorious with a 


THE GROTESQUE IN SCULPTURE 223 


certain restless life which, though hectic and unnatural, 
does still exert a very powerful, sensory appeal. 

This tendency is marked in the work of Berruguete’s 
pupil, Juan de Juni (1507?-1577), a characteristic 
sample of whose style may be seen in the Descent 
from the Cross [see plate XI] in the cathedral at 
Segovia. Here no longer are to be found the haggard, 
ecstatic types of El maestro de la pasién but something 
rather coarse and plebeian. Indeed, in his search for 
reality Juni copies his lower characters from the beg- 
gars, picaroons, and riff-raff wallowing in the gutters of 
Spain, and even his higher personages appear beefy and 
sensual. To animate such banal clods he is forced to 
hurl them into the most turbulent attitudes, screwing 
their limbs into impossible positions and wrenching 
their faces into horrible distortions. Berteaux even goes 
so far as to compare Juni’s figures with bodies wracked 
by the spasms of a dose of poison, and certainly the 
supporting soldier to the left of the group justifies his 
criticism. Some of Berruguete’s mannerisms are also 
prominent in Juni’s work, but without the spiritual 
effect of the master, despite the fact that the pupil des- 
perately exaggerates them. Thus the heads cocked to 
one side, the fantastic expressions, swirling limbs, and 
twisted torsos are all nothing more than imitations of 
the tousser et cracher of genius. To these familiar man- 
nerisms the sculptor adds a chaos of effusive drapery 
and a coloring of explosive violence. Startling as Ber- 
ruguete’s polychromes are, they pale before Juni’s chro- 


224 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


matic delirium tremens, for there is a dizzy blaze of 
red and gold with livid blues and greens, not flat col- 
ors either, but harsh and brilliant, so that his squirm- 
ing figures in their lurid enamels resemble nothing so 
much as a pyrotechnical display. 

Advancing a few decades further into the Golden 
Age, we may observe a tendency closely related to this 
prodigality of color in the wholesale bedizening of 
statuary with goldish gew-gaws and opulent raiment. 
The close similarity of this sartorial trumpery, abso- 
lutely extrinsic to the sculptural composition, with the 
surcharged metaphors of gongorism, likewise exoteric, 
is all the more remarkable when we discover the al- 
most exact synchronization between these ornamental 
superfluities in the two arts. We may compare the 
Christ of Monatafiés [see plate XII] in the church of 
San Lorenzo at Seville, for example, with the sonnet 
to Bavia written perhaps the same year (1619), or 
with the great gongoristic poems dating six years 
earlier, and note how the fantastic, meretricious im- 
agery of the Spanish Homer finds its analogues in the 
trappings of this statue. Jointed like a dressmaker’s 
manikin and provided with a detachable halo and crown 
of thorns, this Christ is tricked out in an outrageously 
gorgeous robe of velvet and silk with embroidered gold 
baroques. The grotesque contrast, furthermore, be- 
tween the restrained and finely modeled head and the 
garish, incontinent clothing, is also somewhat similar 
to Gongora’s grotesque remark in a sonnet on the 


THE GROTESQUE IN SCULPTURE 225 


crucifixion, before alluded to, that Christ could not 
have been cold when he hung upon the cross because 
he was sweating blood. 

We should observe here, perhaps, that the likenesses 
between a single piece of bizarre poetry and a single 
piece of bizarre sculpture are neither coincidental nor 
isolated, nor yet is it a similarity to be observed in the 
work of Gongora only with perhaps just two or three 
sculptors. Moreover, the comparisons between the ex- 
aggerated styles of poetry and sculpture are not fanci- 
ful nor fortuitous. Many examples of extravagant 
sculpture, indeed, could be produced to tally with numer- 
ous contemporary pieces of flamboyant poetry. Practi- 
cally as many innovators of freakish sculpture could be 
found as there are exponents of extraordinary litera- 
ture. Therefore, when we concentrate our attention, 
say, upon Juni or Berruguete it is only because they 
typify in a marked degree the style of the exaggerated 
manner in sculpture, just as, in letters, GOngora does 
for all gongorism. Then, too, the identity of the unre- 
strained baroque in sculpture with gongorism is en- 
tirely too obvious to be fanciful, especially when allow- 
ance is made for the metamorphosis imposed by the 
dissimilarity of the two arts upon the single cultural 
proclivity for extravagant expression. Both in sculpture 
and in letters there is the same profuse emphasis upon 
the external adornments of art, the same propensity to 
accentuate odd characteristics, the same predilection for 
the subjective and symbolical. Finally, toward the end 


226 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


of the great cycle, there is the same attempt to hide 
barren imagination under decorative fripperies and 
technical mountebankery. 

As the Golden Agé draws to a close, sculpture, like 
literature, loses life and spontaneity, and this, as we 
have just observed, explains the great emphasis laid 
upon vulgar ornament. Scarcely a figure is to be seen 
that is not resplendent with vulgar haberdashery, and 
even the great sculptures of preceding generations 
come forth disguised anew with a sartorial glory be- 
fitting their relative stations, even to the extent of being 
begemmed with rings and pendants. To object that this 
taste for well dressed saints is a mark of the peculiar 
respect and piety of the Spanish temperament, is quite 
beside the question; indeed, we may observe in passing 
that this love for tailoring holy personages @ la mode 
reached a height when true piety was at its lowest ebb. 
Sculpture, like literature, was dying, and the whole 
spiritual life of the first half of the eighteenth century 
was in its death-bed throes. The religious buffoonery 
satirized by Padre Isla finds its parallels not only in the 
charlatanic poetry of Leén y Mansilla but also in the 
absurd mannerisms and quackish embellishments of 
late sculpture. 

From about the middle of the seventeenth century 
and down into the eighteenth a craze for ghastly sub- 
jects develops—punishments, putrefactions, and all 
sorts of horrific agonies. It seems almost as if sculp- 
ture in its declining years would fain dwell upon the 


THE GROTESQUEIN SCULPTURE 227 


subject of death. This ghoulish turn in art affords a 
splendid field for the exercise of the decadent tenden- 
cies of the expiring baroque: facial contortions, spasms, 
lurid colors, and sickening postures, the grewsome de- 
tails all elaborated with a care that might argue a 
psychopathic abnormality in both artist and public. 
Nevertheless, in all this mortuary sculpture there is a 
leaning towards realism of a kind—a disgusting, de- 
generate realism, to be sure, that in its use of real hair, 
porcelain teeth, glass eyes, and beads for tears, is rather 
an exact copy than an illusion of a higher reality. 
Consequently, the productions of this doddering epoch 
resemble the revolting wax figures in a cheap medi- 
cal museum. The church of Nuestra Sefiora del Pilar 
at Saragossa, the monastery of Santa Clara at Seville, 
the cathedral at Granada, and the Colegio de Filipinos 
de Santa Maria de la Vida, are full of spectacles of 
harrowing executions, the decapitations of Saint Paul, 
Saint John, and Saint Anastasia being especial favor- 
ites. Typical of this class of sculpture is the head of 
Saint Paul (1707) by Alonso Villabrille [see plate 
XIII] in the museum at Valladolid, with its superlative 
whiskers, obtrusive dentition, glassy, up-rolled eyeballs, 
and livid coloring. 

We have now seen, in this survey of sculpture, the 
emancipation of an art, more or less dependent in its 
early stages upon architecture, to a position of inde- 
pendence and affluence. We have also observed how, 
during the creative urge of the Golden Age, this inde- 


228 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


pendence verges upon anarchy and the affluence upon 
crass opulence. Due in part, at least, to the unrestrained 
magnificence of the age, we noted the extreme popu- 
larity of polychrome statuary and its own particular 
propensities toward exaggeration. In the following 
chapter we shall turn our attention to the use of color 
in Spanish painting in order to show that during the 
Golden Age that art has also some analogy to offer to 
the fantastic poetry of gongorism. 3 


iat Ms 
nay Villabrille 
John “ Baptist 


XI. PAINTING AS A FIELD FOR PHANTASY 


N THE discussion of polychrome 
statuary in the preceding chapter, we 
had occasion to observe how sculp- 
ture is invaded by painting. We may 
now point out an instance on the 
other side in which sculpture encroaches upon the pre- 
rogatives of painting. Just as statues are tinted and 
sometimes posed against painted scenic backgrounds, 
owing to a desire for greater vividness and realism, so 


too, from a similar motive probably, springs the fashion 
for raising paintings until they resemble bas-reliefs. 
This effect is secured by applying stucco or plaster to 
the canvas and then painting over it. Unhappily the 
raised portions are usually unessentials, such as jew- 
els, halos, armor, and brocaded clothing, and these are 
not only raised and painted but further accentuated by 
heavy gilding. Unless the central motif in a painting of 
this type is unusually strong, the composition succumbs 
to the extrinsic embellishment just as surely as the 
[ 229 ] 


ite 


230 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


motif in gongoristic poetry is overwhelmed by prolix 
imagery. 

This meretricious ornamentation begins to show it- 
self very early in Spanish painting and increases by 
leaps and bounds as the Golden Age draws near. One 
of the most conspicuous early examples of the fashion 
is afforded by the Virgin on the altar of the cathedral 
at Tarazona (1439), a very mannered product possibly 
of the Navarro-Aragonese school. By 1490, Pau 
Vergos carries the style to greater lengths in his repre- 
sentation of the investiture of Saint Augustine (Ora- 
tory of the Tanners, Barcelona), though by singularly 
fine characterization the artist has saved his picture 
from becoming mere tinsel and glitter. In contrast to 
this, the Saint Peter [see plate XIV] from a retable in 
the Dalmay Collection at Barcelona, shows that the 
artist’s strength of portraiture is not strong enough to 
make ornament appear as a mere accessory to composi- 
tion. The picture, consequently, is swamped by the very 
means which should have contributed to its splendor, 
and the riot of gold and stucco, like the welter of meta- 
phors in the Soledades, only stresses the paucity of 
creative imagination in the painter. 

We may compare this fad for ornate brocades, raised 
stucco work, and lavish gilding to those elements of 
gongorism which we have emphasized as cultist, since 
the craze is a perversion and exaggeration not of idea 
but rather of technique. The blaze of gold and the 


 PHANTASIES IN PAINTING mst 


twisty stucco undoubtedly give to a composition a sort 
of barbaric éclat quite like the bizarre effect of rich 
words and wrenched constructions in the language of 
gongorism, but neither has any spiritual significance. 
Furthermore, it is significant that the predilection for 
this ‘“‘cultist” art in Spanish painting also experienced 
a phase of orgiastic abandon during the latter sixteenth 
and the first half of the seventeenth centuries, coinci- 
dent with the rise and flooding of gongorism. Perhaps 
this false art is a little more characteristic of Ara- 
gonese and Catalonian painting than Castilian. It does, 
nevertheless, afford a very fair example of how paint- 
ing, in company with the other arts, shows itself in 
sympathy with the boisterous spirit of the great age, 
for even during the cultural debacle of the eighteenth: 
century it sinks with its artistical sisters into an equally 
decadent profligacy. 

Since we have likened the gilding and stucco work 
of painting to cultism, we may with justice term “con- 
ceptist” those mannerisms which seem to possess some 
spiritual meaning, recalling, of course, that here, just 
as in literature, there is no sharp line of demarcation 
between the two qualities. Accordingly, if we may 
justly regard baroque extravagance and strange man- 
nerisms as “conceptist,’ we may state further that 
such ‘“‘conceptism’”’ in painting, even as the “cultism,” 
synchronizes with all the general phases of the cultural 
development of the people. On the verge of the Golden 
Age the “conceptism” of painting is already vividly ap- 


232 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


parent; during the classical time it bursts into a weird 
splendor, and finally degenerates into a grotesque ar- 
tistical gibberish in the eighteenth century. To illustrate 
these three important phases in the growth of this sort 
of painting, therefore, we shall select a single artist 
for each period whose work will embody its character. 

The first of these is Luis de Morales (1508?-1586), 
surnamed “the divine’ with unconscious irony because 
of his emaciated conceptions of holy men seized in 
moments of neurotic ecstasy. Mixing Italian beauty, 
Flemish ugliness, and Spanish realism in various pro- 
portions, the artist often obtains upon his canvases 
effects somewhat similar to, though by no means as 
intense as those wrought by Berruguete in wood. 
Morales frequently lengthens the faces of his charac- 
ters, thereby imbuing them with a certain facile spiritu- 
ality without, however, any of the baroque vigor to be 
seen in Berruguete’s elongations, and thus Morales’ 
men are as effeminate as his women are ethereal. The 
justice of this observation is best recognized in the 
Virgen de la leche (now in the Prado), which is 
handled with the most exquisite delicacy, the face of 
the Virgin being frail and ecstatic with a nebulous 
luster about the hair and high forehead. On comparing 
this with the Christ in the Ecce Homo (Hispanic So- 
ciety, New York) we discover in the latter, almost trait 
by trait, the same pale beauty, and this quality, when 
transferred to male characters, renders them weak and 
womanish, especially when coupled with an air of 


EE a ae a ee ee 


PHANTASIES IN PAINTING PAE 


supercilious aloofness, only too intrusive in this par- 
ticular composition. 

As Berruguete over-emphasizes the dramatic vehe- 
mence of emotion by exaggerated contortions, so 
Morales dwells upon the motionless rapture of a soul 
and portrays it by mannerisms which seem less notice- 
able only because quiet. His fondness for large, deep, 
liquid eyes, long, slim noses, and narrow, wedge-shaped, 
chinless faces gives to his heads the same monotonous 
regularity as one sees in the washed-out water color 
drawings of women on our popular magazine covers. 
The “divine” Morales, therefore, owes his divinity 
merely to a pretty eccentricity quite as much as, let us 
say, the “divine” Gibson or the ‘divine’ Harrison 
Fisher—although, being a real artist, it amounts almost 
to sacrilege to name him in the same breath with them. 

At times, however, Morales attempts an individuality 
which straightway plunges him into the grotesque. This 
is very plain in the Pietd [see plate XV, collection of 
Sir John Stirling Maxwell, London], in which the artist 
has depicted the ghastly ugliness of death without any 
of its icy, austere majesty. The face of the Virgin alone 
redeems the composition, and she has so gained in tragic 
intensity as to resemble none of the painter’s character- 
istic Virgins. That some critics, therefore, have ascribed 
this picture to a pupil of Morales should be of little 
importance, inasmuch as we are concerned with the 
conformity of Spanish painting in general with the 
spirit of the nation’s culture and not with the ticketing 


234 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


of individual pictures. Were Shakespeare’s dramas, for 
example, written by Bacon or even another man named 
Shakespeare, it would cast little additional light upon 
the interpretation of Elizabethan England. Accordingly, 
we may leave the tempest of authorship in its proper 
teapot and consider the Christ in the Pietad as one of 
the earliest important examples of “gongorism’’ in 
painting, be it by Morales or not. 

As we observed, the artist has wholly missed the 
spiritual significance of death, since its futility and re- 
volting destructiveness alone are emphasized; and this 
suggests a very morbid if not pessimistic conception of 
the Savior’s supreme sacrifice. Yet even there the 
tragedy and profundity of a true pessimism are want- 
ing—there is little idea or emotion at all, and Morales 
has attempted to cover up absence of meaning under 
mannerisms and grotesque conceptions in a fashion 
characteristic of gongorism. The effeminate face of his — 
Christ is made still more womanish with its impeccable 
coiffure of pomaded curls; furthermore, his saucy tip- 
tilted nose, delicate moustache, and sensuous lips of a 
distinct, Cupid’s bow pattern are incongruous with the 
character of Christ. Such a man never could have 
driven the money-changers from the temple with a 
scourge of ropes. One has only to compare this face 
' with Epstein’s Christ to realize how utterly Morales 
has lost the man of action. The Christ of the Pretd is a 
passive, pitiful Savior who has had suffering thrust 
upon him and who succumbed to it, not one’;who sought 


PHANTASIES IN PAINTING 235 


suffering and overcame it—it is the sort of Christ, in 
short, that women cry over but no man respects. 

In contrast to the frail beauty and weak features of 
this Savior is the charnel-house realism of death, a 
realism which, despite its possible Gothic, Flemish, or 
Arabic provenance, has touched a very responsive chord 
in the Spanish temperament. The artist plays up to this 
morbid craving of his countrymen by caricaturing the 
gruesome details of mortality, but with even more 
bizarrerie than Berruguete allowed in his face of the 
Cardinal of Tavera. The cheek bones of Morales’ 
Christ are prominent as bruises and stick out like great 
welts above a cadaverous face. The eye sockets are deep 
and the eggish eye ball is unpleasantly corporeal. Still, 
what is most repulsive are the half-opened lids which, 
bereft of lashes, allow a glimpse of the glazed, upturned 
eye—in short, we see the gross physiology of death 
without its comforting theology. Since the eye, poetic- 
ally called the window of the soul, is not drawn closed 
so as to show the spirit’s final abandonment of the house 
of life, but instead is painted with its blinds half up, 
one feels irresistibly that the soul is still there and that 
it too has died, and lies rotting within its grotesque 
tenement. Of all conceptions of death, both bodily and 
spiritual, this is the most fantastic and most inappro- 
priate to draw from the crucifixion of Christ. 

The work of Morales’ disciples is still more grotesque 
and mannered, partly because imitators are prone to 
exaggerate eccentricities alone, and partly because the 


236 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


maturing spirit of the Golden Age permitted its ex- 
cessive vigor to be squandered in bizarre phantasies. 
Yet here, inasmuch as the scope of our work will 
scarcely afford space for a consideration of Morales’ 
artistic heritors, we must pass on, with the mere obser- 
vation that the tendency towards unrestraint becomes 
increasingly pronounced as the sixteenth century closes, 
and devote our attention to the closest analogy which 
Spanish painting, or for that matter any of the arts of 
Spain, can offer to the fantastic style in her literature. 
Accordingly, we shall turn to a painter who comes at 
the very culmination of a great age, one whose 
strangest canvases synchronize almost exactly with the 
bewildering Soledades, one who, because of his wild, 
mad manner has justly been called the “Gongora of 
Painting’ —El Greco (1550?-1614). 

Born in Crete, of the race signified by his sobriquet 
and suggested by his true name, Domenico Theoto- 
copoulis, this enigmatic artist though apprenticed in 
Italy, is perhaps the most fervid ever produced by Spain 
and hence the most typical of her intense, religious spirit. 
From his paintings we discover plainly the sensitiveness 
with which he felt the tempestuous grandeur of the 
Golden Age, and from them too may be seen how his 
strange individuality transmutes this epochal ebullience 
into a turbulent mysticism at once bizarre and rhetori- 
cal. All of his pictures seethe and swirl with the unre- 
strained tumult of the time; his conceptions are full of 
the agony of a passionate soul struggling for utterance 


PHANTASIES IN PAINTING 237 


though choked into partial inarticulation because of 
the very vehemence of its emotion. Notwithstanding 
this quality of rapt ecstasy, we cannot help noticing 
poses, gestures, and extravagant mannerisms. So evi- 
dent are these adventitious stimulants and so bound up 
with them the spiritual delirium they produce, that it is 
sometimes impossible to tell whether the artistic frenzy 
is a divine language or a gibberish and whether the 
painter, therefore, is a prophet or charlatan. 

Like Gongora, El Greco did not develop his flam- 
boyant phantasies with volcanic suddenness but instead 
produced them through the process of long evolution. 
Castro, it may be recalled, described the growth of 
Gongora’s bizarre manner by comparing the poet to a 
woman who paints, beginning first with little dabs but, 
without noticing it, putting on more and more each day 
until at last there is so much garish color that what once 
enhanced her beauty repels by grotesque ugliness. The 
same simile may justly be applied to El Greco, for the 
chronological study of his work makes it evident that 
the artist first obtained certain powerful and beautiful 
effects by mere virtuosities, but later, through attempt- 
ing to magnify the effect, he exaggerates the virtuosity 
until finally his theatrical mannerisms lose the last 
vestige of verisimilitude and stand stark naked, de- 
void of spiritual significance, altogether grotesque and 
mechanical. 

Here, however, since we are not concerned so much 
with the explanation of how the painter developed his 


238 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


exotic manner as with the fact that it does exist, our 
main interest in describing it will be to show its analogy 
to gongorism and its significance in the cycle of the na- 
tion’s artistic culture. It may be of interest first, never- 
theless, to note several of the theories advanced to 
account for the artist’s weird style, and then to men- 
tion several pictures painted at various intervals in his 
career in order to show, as with Gongora, the gradual 
growth of his bizarre propensities. After that, we may 
concentrate our attention upon El Greco’s affinity with 
the spirit of gongorism. 

Grotesque, then, as the painter’s genius is, the theories 
that would account for it are still more grotesque. His 
change from the Venetian to a more mannered style, a 
change, by the way, requiring many years, is said to 
have been occasioned by a remark that his work re- 
sembled Tintoretto’s. According to the story, the artist 
was so incensed at this reflection upon his originality 
that he went to extremes just in order to contradict it. 
More obvious, though quite as clumsy, is the insanity 
theory, also flung at Victoria and Gongora, and always 
a favorite explanation for anything that cannot be com- 
prehended. This hypothesis has enjoyed a great vogue 
among many art critics who never understood the 
painter. Sampere y Miguel for example, in his work El 
Greco, considers that in the artist’s final or decadent 
period—always men of genius produce by convenient 
periods—he lost the equilibrium of his mental faculties. 
The Portuguese, Ricardo Jorge, in a work also entitled 


PHANTASIES IN PAINTING 239 


El Greco, throws the light of his medical erudition upon 
the question and diagnoses the painter’s early mental 
condition as a progenerescencia which ultimately de- 
veloped into degenerescencia. 

The painter, indeed, seems to have exercised a peculiar 
fascination upon Iberian scientists. A certain eye doc- 
tor, one German Beritens, makes the illuminating dis- 
covery that El Greco suffered from estrabismo of the 
right eye, which caused a lengthening of his figure on 
a vertical line, somewhat similar to the affliction of 
Reubens, who distorted horizontals. The notion that the 
artist, like the wise men of Laputa, used only one eye, 
should be regarded with grave doubt even though the 
learned specialist has supported his theory with the aid 
of. chemistry, physics, and eloquence. That El Greco 
painted distortions and then again normal drawings all 
in the same picture is also easily explained by this 
scientist. He affirms that El Greco produced the dis- 
tortions only when his eyes, or rather his eye, was tired ; 
and after a few nights’ rest, when the afflicted member 
regained its pristine capacity, he saw better and put 
in normal figures. With his eyesight restored, one 
wonders why the painter did not erase and correct his 
distortions, but this inconsistency the erudite doctor 
sublimely ignores. 

Several critics have noticed the Byzantine element 
in El Greco’s work, and Melida (El arte antiguo y El 
Greco) has discovered certain curious resemblances 
between the Byzantine Greek mosaics of the sixth cen- 


240 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


tury, such as the one in the cathedral at Monreale, 
Sicily, and El Greco’s portraitures, as well as other 
more fanciful reminiscences in some of the Greek por- 
traits painted on the mummy cases recently exhumed at 
Fayum, Egypt. There is, indeed, a vague, disquieting 
similarity between the fixed, black, staring eyes of this 
antique art and the portraits of our artist. With this 
as evidence, therefore, Melida advocates the theory 
that the painter’s style was an atavistic reversion, or 
return to a primitive type, deeply fixed in the artistic 
consciousness of the Greek race. Still, intriguing as this 
hypothesis is, it savors too strongly of the days of 
table-turning and spirit-rapping to insure its acceptance 
at the present time. 

Castro’s picturesque simile of an unconscious evo- 
lution seems not only the most natural explanation but 
the only one supported by the facts in the artist’s work. 
Often El Greco entertains so great a fondness for his 
compositions that he later recopies them, sometimes 
repeating a single one from time to time throughout 
his whole career. It is in such compositions that the 
formation and gradual exaggeration of his bizarre 
style can be observed most perfectly. In his conception, 
Saint Francis of Assisi (Madrid, D. R. Garcia), 
probably painted in Italy (1577-1584), one is struck 
with a golden warmth of color suffusing the picture 
like the drowsy, yellow sunlight of a late summer’s 
afternoon. In addition there is a pleasant yet sensuous 
beauty in the good-natured face of the saint, and a 


PHANTASIES IN PAINTING 241 


robust perfection of physique which is wholly Italian. 
If this picture be compared with one of the same sub- 
ject (Madrid, Marqués de Pidal) made a few years 
later (1584-1590?), it will be seen that the glamorous 
background has faded to an ashy twilight with a 
troubled sky. The figure of the saint is still sturdy but 
somewhat thinner and less corporeal, his hands gesture, 
and his peaked features delineate, unmistakably, the 
ascetic. Still later (1590?-1594), comes another con- 
ception of Saint Francis (Madrid, D. R. P. de Quinto) 
painted against a ghostly, pallid background of stormy 
clouds. The gestures become affected, the face cadaver- 
ous, while the eggy eyes portray the ecstasy of a reli- 
gious paranoiac. At last (1604-1614) the holy man is 
painted in the artist’s most erratic manner (Madrid, 
D. F. Brieva) and the picture has not the remotest 
resemblance to the first. The clouds in the background 
swirl like a tremendous tempest and an eerie lightning 
seems to flicker, fitfully illuminating the gloomy saint. 
His pose is altogether rhetorical and mannered, his 
nose unpleasantly long, and though in keeping with his 
hatchet profile, the high light upon it lends it an incon- 
gruously doggish aspect, which, with the fixed gaze and 
tense attitude, unfortunately suggests a sort of spiritual 
bird-dog frozen into a point before the ascending 
heavenly dove. 

The slow metamorphosis into a grotesque style is to 
be seen not only in the Saint Francis pictures, but all 
the painter’s canvases show it; and those which have 


242 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


been painted within closer intervals of one another, as 
the Purification of the Temple, owned by Sir H. Cook, 
and the same subject in the possession of D. A. de 
Beruete, or the Adoration of the Shepherds in the 
Royal Gallery of Bucharest and the one in the Metro- 
politan Museum at New York, reveal more gradual 
stages of the transition. There can be no doubt, there- 
fore, that the artist’s fantastic style, like Gongora’s, 
was the result of a slow but steady conversion. And this 
fact is of great importance because it shows the irre- 
sistible formative power of the flamboyant spirit of 
the Golden Age upon a genius. Were race, artistic 
heritage, or early training of any effect, El Greco would 
never have painted as he did, but would have belonged 
artistically to Greece, Byzantium, or Venice, and con- 
sequently would never have become more Spanish 
than Spain. We may look in vain in the artist’s later 
work for the poise and symmetry of Greece; it has 
been swept away by the delirious whirl of an im- 
petuous age. We may search for the sharp, hard col- 
ors of the Byzantine mosaic and never find them in 
the marvelous, lineless brushwork and melancholy hues 
which the artist has infused with the gloomy mysticism 
of the time. We may long for the voluptuous, corporeal 
beauty of Italian painting; yet the grotesque caricatures 
of this artist have nevertheless a spiritual beauty that 
disturbs while it inspires, and a vigor and frenzy that 
could belong to no time or clime but the Golden Age 
of Spain. Never was there a better example of how a 


PHANTASIES IN PAINTING 243 


nation and an epoch forced the destiny of its own cul- 
ture to become articulate in a genius alien to it in race, 
in tradition, and in schooling. Never was there a better 
example of the inevitableness of an artistic style. 

It is only El Greco’s later works that really need 
concern us, because they exhibit most strikingly the 
translation of the spirit of gongorism into the medium 
of painting. In them the two-fold nature of the liter- 
ary fashion, the cultist and conceptist, is also dis- 
coverable and offers analogies, part for part, with its 
prototypes in poetry. If we examine first of all the 
cultist elements—the fantastic innovations in the tech- 
nique of expression—we may discover there a resem- 
blance, more than superficial, between the neologisms 
and hyperbates of gongorism and the bizarre novelties 
of the artist and his violent contrasts of color, light, 
and shade. This “cultism’” of the medium is best ob- 
served in El Greco’s only landscape, an impressionistic 
painting of Toledo (New York, Mrs. Havemeyer), 
because in his portraits, and to a less extent in his figure 
groups, the unnatural shades possess only secondary 
importance, serving merely to heighten the effect of the 
dominant human feature of the composition. In a land- 
scape, however, all is in a sense background and, in 
spite of some passable unity, when no tree or building 
possesses particular significance, we seem entitled to 
greater fidelity to nature and consequently feel more 
sensitive to technical mountebankery. 


244 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Although a photograph [see plate XVI] cannot of 
course reveal the morbid hues which contribute so 
strongly to the unearthly phantasy of the composition, 
it does not hide the hectic contrast of steeples and 
battlements blazing against a lurid background; so we 
shall not be greatly handicapped when we inspect the 
naive, theatrical clap-trap out of which the picture is 
made. To begin with, the artist exaggerates, making 
gentle slopes precipitous, crags out of innocent rocks, 
and castles of squat edifices. With this, however, there 
could be no quarrel were it done artfully enough to 
keep it from being so obvious, for it could then be 
pardoned as one of the fanciful fairy scenes of roman- 
ticism. But El Greco does not stop there. To accentuate 
his towering battlements he paints them sharp and 
harsh and stresses their rather clumsy angularity by 
making his trees and herbage altogether without line; 
he undulates trunks and makes foliage as amorphous 
as smoke clouds. Then, cheapest trick of all, he fur- 
ther calls attention to his bricks and mortar by violent 
illuminations, painting the lightest outlines against the 
darkest backgrounds whether such contrasts have any 
justification or not. Sometimes this lighting is utterly 
absurd as, for example, the arches of the bridge which 
show white beneath, albeit the same background above 
them is excessively dark. Like Gongora, the artist out- 
rages nature merely to produce a startling effect, 
and the result is, similarly, nothing but a bewild- 
ering jumble without form or plan. Like Gongora’s too, 


PHANTASIES IN PAINTING 245 


the genius of El Greco is undoubtedly great, but it is 
impossible to justify the mad eerie music of either 
merely because of the haunting minors, when there 
are at the same time so many noisy discords to distract 
the sense. 

Turning now to what we may call “‘conceptist’”’ ele- 
ments in the artist’s work, let us examine a few of his 
most fantastic groupings of figures, for there we shall 
discover an eccentric emotional unrestraint coupled 
with exaggerated mannerisms such as we noted earlier 
in the baroque effusions of Berruguete and the gro- 
tesque metaphors of gongorism. There is, to be sure, 
as we have so often observed, no clear cut distinction 
between distortions of form and distortions of idea in 
these paintings, any more than between the cultism and 
conceptism of gongorism, but inasmuch as the spirit- 
uality of El Greco is visible in his very brush strokes, 
we may perhaps be justified in extending the domain 
of his “conceptism,” regarding even his mannerisms as 
aberrations of thought rather than of technique, and 
his flamboyant expressions of emotion wholly so. 

El Greco’s most obvious mannerism is the lengthen- 
ing of the human figure, a racking which sometimes 
reaches the extreme of twelve or more head lengths. 
As with Berruguete and Morales, this trite device auto- 
matically evokes a cadaverous spirituality quite in keep- 
ing with the popular conception of neurotic holy men. 
The semi-nude beggar [see plate XVII-a] in the 
painting Saint Martin (Paris, M. L. Manzi) shows 


246 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


how absurd this stretching becomes. El Greco avoids 
the ethereal effeminacy which such lengthening gives to 
the work of Morales, by endowing his subjects with 
an exaggerated musculature, after the fashion of Ber- 
ruguete. The beggar then, despite the fact that he pos- 
sesses the knees of a woman and the hands of a lady, 
retains a sort of athletic though gangling virility, but 
at the same time the imbecilic ecstasy upon his face, the 
ogling eyes and blubberous lips, make an outrageous 
contrast to the tense, hard sinews of the right arm and 
torso, a contrast which has back of it the same spirit 
that produced the oxymorons of gongoristic poetry. 

A sketch [see plate XVIII] of the head of Saint Se- 
bastian (Toledo, Marqués de la Vega Inclan) illustrates 
the equivalent of gongoristic hyperbole in painting. 
This portrait reminds one of a reflection of a truly fine 
face seen in a lengthening mirror, and in spite of the 
fantastic distortions there still remains sufficient trace 
of greatness for one to guess at the sublimity that might 
have been reached had the artist only expressed himself 
with fidelity. As it is, the very qualities which should 
have stirred the soul are so exaggerated that the be- 
holder is justly exasperated at the miscarriage of 
genius, while he is amused with its grotesqueness. The 
muscles of the figure are as hideous as nightmares and 
leave one with the same uneasiness; the swan-like neck 
needs no comment; and the lugubrious, dying-calf ex- 
pression upon the face, with its swollen jowls, adenoidal 
mouth, and foreshortened nose is typical of many of 


PHANTASIES IN PAINTING 247 


El Greco’s characters. Here too, the painter’s ‘‘meta- 
phors” resemble those of gongorism, because in spite 
of their prolixity, there is a besetting monotony in all 
his poses, gestures, features, and even expressions. It 
matters not how striking or even how bizarre his atti- 
tudes may be, there is a paucity of imagination behind 
them all, and in spite of the artist’s continual jangling 
with his few though unusual elements, the variations 
never suggest a profound knowledge of life. They 
rather leave one convinced of the very narrowness of 
his genius. 

The altisonant rhetoric of gongorism also has its 
analogues in El Greco’s art, for can we not compare his 
sweeping gestures and pompous attitudes with the ver- 
bal fanfaronades of the seventeenth-century lyric? Do 
not the voluminous, flowing garments of the painter’s 
figures suggest its sonorous, redundant periods sur- 
charged with exoteric ornament? Can we not truly call 
his poses rhetorical, since they are not so much the 
result of emotion as the desire, more or less sincere, 
of conveying that emotion to the admirer? If one will 
but study the drapery and gesticulations in the Nativity 
[see plate XIX] and note its meretricious baroques of 
cherubs, one cannot fail to be impressed with the striking 
parallel afforded to bombast—a bombast so noisy and 
chaotic that it completely intrudes upon the composi- 
tion and obfuscates the last vestige of spiritual meaning. 

Closely allied with bombast and hyperbole in paint- 
ing is another trait in which E] Greco’s art resembles 


248 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


gongorism. This is the exaggerated emphasis placed 
upon feeling, a characteristic essentially baroque and 
often suspiciously hollow, inasmuch as it is difficult for 
a genuine emotion to be as theatrical as the perfervid 
hocus-pocus that attempts to conjure it up. The Resur- 
rection (Madrid, Prado Museum), though somewhat 
earlier than the fantastic pictures so far described, is 
one of the artist’s most spectacular canvases and, ac- 
cordingly, will serve as an example of his emotional 
orgasms. In this composition [see plate XVII-b] the 
artist has sharpened the contrast of hectic soldiers by 
drawing the figure of the ascending Savior serenely 
triumphant, and in spite of engrafting the thighs and 
calves of a college oarsman upon Christ, El Greco does 
succeed in making him spiritual and reposeful. Against 
this tranquility the artist places a lurid group of frus- 
trated soldiers in the most impossible attitudes. A tur- 
moil of arms and legs, flashing swords, and convulsive 
gestures, together with a ghastly lighting and coloring 
that make the figures look as if they had been seen in 
the spectral glare of a mercury arc lamp, all contribute 
to an emotional seizure that, if it be disingenuous, bor- 
ders on the insane. 

Yet El Greco was by no means unbalanced ; it seems 
more likely that his emotional pyrotechnics were, like 
Gongora’s poetical ones, merely artistical affectations 
engendered by the cultural milieu of the age. This sup- 
position is certainly supported by an examination of 


PHANTASIES IN PAINTING 249 - 


the Laocoon (Sanlucar de Barrameda, Palacio del 
Infante D. A. de Orleans) for there the painter shows 
how insincere, at times, he could become. The Trojan 
sire and one son are depicted in the mortal agony of 
being strangled by two serpents [see plate XX]. Yet 
the herculean figure of the father, sprawling in an im- 
possible position, dwarfs the snake into insignificance 
and makes its danger almost ridiculous. With his right 
hand he has seized the head as if it were a telephone 
receiver while his left grasps its middle, no larger than 
a small whip. The son, with a still smaller reptile, 
stands like a circus performer playing with a hoop, and 
his graceful body, together with that of the supercilious 
toe dancer at the right of the picture, robs the compo- 
sition of the last shred of tragic reality. El Greco has 
painted not a drama but a hollow farce, full of silly 
baroque poses and devoid of truth. 

One more picture remains to be discussed, the Vision 
of the Apocalypse (Zuloaga, Paris), in describing 
which we may aptly apply a term used elsewhere, and 
call it the painter’s “Soledades’ [see plate XXI], 
inasmuch as it represents his most delirious phan- 
tasmagoria. Against a melodramatic, storm-lashed sky, 
murky and unearthly, the artist flings a bizarre mantle 
of red, and beneath it, horribly distorted, naked bodies 
writhe and leap in a mysterious manner. Formless 
cherubs, as pudgy as the other figures are elongated, 
ride through the tumultuous air on strangely colored 
robes. Fantastically tinted, too, is the voluminous man- 


250 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


tle, falling into “altisonant” folds about the colossal 
figure of the kneeling saint in the foreground. Rhe- 
torical, unrestrained, and flamboyant is the saint him- 
self, whose mannered hands and outstretched arms are 
repeated, partially at least, in four other personages in 
the composition. His face is also nothing but a type, 
an insincere pose of baroquish ecstasy, almost identical 
with the face of the Saint Sebastian, and although there 
is a certain mawkish, theatrical emotionalism in the 
whole, it fails to achieve true greatness and only irri- 
tates with its too obvious clap-trap of stage thunder, 
fustian, and fretful gesticulating. In short, it is a per- 
fect interpretation of that sublimely meaningless chaos 
contained in the last book of the Bible. All the weird 
mystery, the garish beauty of Revelation, the jumble of 
symbolism and allegory as of a dark prophecy gone 
mad, is expressed on this one canvas. It is something 
more than a painting, it is the visualization, indeed, of 
that strange dream on the isle of Patmos. 

El Greco presents an analogy to Gongora as exact 
as it is perfectly synchronized. And it is not merely the 
accidental coincidence of two mad geniuses in separate 
provinces of art, but rather a simultaneous and parallel 
development of their very arts. The poet and the painter 
alike possess a long esthetic ancestry and still more 
numerous esthetic heirs, so that we may regard each 
not as isolated freaks but as symbols of their respective 
flamboyant styles that created a tremendous pandemo- 
nium in their respective fields. Similar to Gongora also, 


PHANTASIES IN PAINTING 251 


El Greco comes at the flood of the nation’s cultural de- 
velopment, and he likewise marks its large prodigality as 
well as its proximate degeneracy. Men of genius are not 
wholly the haphazard playthings strewn by a careless 
Providence over the floors of time; they are the treas- 
ures accumulated by a people of mature artistic con- 
sciousness, and, furthermore, they are treasures hoarded 
within the compass of a few decades. Men of genius 
never produce a golden age any more than a child can 
conceive and give birth to its parent. It is the spirit of 
the race which, when the cycle of its time is fulfilled, 
brings them forth inevitably. The same age that once 
and for all created Lope, Alarcon, Tirso, Calderon, and 
Cervantes, also gave to painting Murillo, Ribera, Zur- 
baran, and Velasquez. Gongora and El Greco represent 
the decay already beginning in that period of culture, 
and if they sometimes attain true greatness it is largely 
because the age that produced them was great. 

Still, if El Greco represents the beginning of a gen- 
eral disintegration of Spanish painting, is it not strange 
that Velasquez, coming later, embodies the very epi- 
tome of its perfection? Perhaps the reader may recall 
a similar paradox in the case of Gongora, who initiated 
a decay in poetry some years before Alarcén pro- 
duced his best work, and practically at the same time 
that Lope and Cervantes gave theirs to the world. The 
explanation is the same for both cases, and it lies in the 
fact that certain genres of art are more limited in 
scope than others, and hence mature and decay earlier. 


252 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


To recall in substance our earlier comparison, the works 
of genius are like the fruits upon a tree, some of which 
ripen and rot while larger ones yet wax upon the bough. 
Nevertheless, when the more ephemeral fruit lies upon 
the ground it is a sign that a general falling is imminent 
and that the days of golden genius will soon be past. 
There can be no question that the scope of El Greco’s 
art is far more limited than that of Velasquez, just as 
the lyric of Gongora, pruned and clipped as fantastic- 
ally as a formal garden, is more limited than the all- 
embracing vistas of Lope and the tremendous land- 
scapes of Cervantes. El Greco’s outlook is restricted to 
religious subjects, and even there it is further narrowed 
down by his predilection for morbid or unbalanced 
emotional states, and such fields, by their very nature, 
invite phantasy. Velasquez, on the other hand, explores 
every phase of the wide life of his day, and being a 
realist and painting from life rather than from im- 
agination, he is never upset by bizarreries. Indeed, we 
may call El Greco the Don Quixote of Spanish paint- 
ing, and Velasquez the Sancho Panza. Both represent 
the soul of Spain and both portray it equally well, for 
one presents the ideal and the other the real; together, 
as in the novel of Cervantes, their Spain is fully de- 
lineated in all her complexity and in all her contra- 
dictions. Since El Greco, the: knight of many woeful 
figures, was by nature an aristocratic and passionate, 
high-minded dreamer, it is not surprising that he should 
go tilting at chimeras with brush and palette, and that 


PHANTASIES IN PAINTING 253 


his furious eccentricities should herald the disruption 
of the great painting of the Golden Age. 

There are, nevertheless, indications of a degenerate 
flamboyance in other master painters of this very 
period. The furious brushwork and caricatures of Fran- 
cisco Herrera (1576?-1656) are as extravagant as El 
Greco’s, and the attitudes of some of Francisco Ri- 
balta’s (d. 1628) figures are quite as violent. Francisco 
Zurbaran occasionally makes a fetish of the ugly, An- 
tonio de Saavedra y Castillo elongates his harsh faces, 
and Pedro de Moya with his pupil Juan de Valdés Leal 
attracts notice altogether by mannerisms. These, how- 
ever, are, as we said, only the forewarners of the im- 
pending artistic chaos which sank Spanish painting 
into as fantastic a morass, during the late seventeenth 
and the eighteenth centuries, as that which had over- 
whelmed the poetry of the same period. We may see 
the depths of this decadence in the grandiose obscurity 
of Luca Jordan (d. 1693), an artist whose work is so 
enigmatic that he himself boasted, like a singer of the 
Trobar clus, that no one could interpret it. We may 
trace it still further in the forlorn mannerisms of Ra- 
phael Mengs and in the host of painters who affected 
such a morbid avidity for ghastly and grotesque sub- 
jects. Indeed, this ‘“gongorism” persisted in painting 
down into the nineteenth century as the horrible dis- 
parates [see plate XXII], caprichos [XXIII], and 
fantastic caricatures [see plate XXIV] of Francisco de 


254 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Goya (1746-1828), our third and last example, well 
testify. 

The significance of this splurging, bizarre effusive- 
ness in painting, and its concomitance with a kindred, 
nauseating effusion in the florid styles of sculpture, 
architecture, and music, show that without a doubt the 
over-gorged culture of the Golden Age had then reached 
the limit of its capacity. This culture had ever been 
greedy of beauty, had possessed an uncontrollable appe- 
tite for the rich and exotic, and finally, intoxicated with 
the poisonous fumes of powerful artistic stimulants, it 
began with a convulsive vomiting of its unassimilated, 
highly flavored rarities, a long and disquieting period 
of sickness. Since poetry is but one of the artistic senses 
of culture, are we to believe that its sickness, gon- 
gorism—which is in all essentials so similar to the 
fantastic aberrations present in the other arts—is 
wholly isolated? Rather is it not that the explanations 
and understanding of gongorism are identical to that 
required for the distortion present at the same time in 
the other artistic senses? Does not its cause rest upon 
the fact that the very culture of the time was showing 
signs of losing its spiritual health? 


\ 


C92 


poetry, its parallels in he arts of Spain, 
<7 and its analogues in alien literatures. Before 
AC 7A we pronounce the valedictory and send out 
into an indifferent world our academically nurtured 
opinions concerning the fantastic style, let us rapidly 
recall the most important—the prize winners in the 
graduating class of gongorism—and perhaps add a 
few words by way of parting exordium. 

We should remember, then, that scarcely one-fifth of 
Gongora’s poetry can be described as gongoristic— 
that is, characterized by the taste for strange words 
and constructions, bizarre tropes, and obscure allusions. 
Worthy of note too, is the fact that the peculiar style of 
this small fraction of the Spanish Homer’s work was 
not formed suddenly but underwent a gradual evolu- 
tion, reaching, as far as quality is concerned, the acme 
of its erratic development sometime between 1600 and 
1605. As to quantity, when Gongora visited the Span- 
ish court, saw there a frivolous society avid for novel- 


[250 


256 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


ties, found rhymesters innumerable playing for quick 
applause, and witnessed them win it by cheap poetical 
fripperies, then he too turned metrical mountebank. 
Never had his work of genuine merit received sub- 
stantial recognition, and so, between 1610 and 1615, 
or thereabouts, he brought to the altar of the meretri- 
cious muse those long poems so famous in the annals 
of gongorism. But this flamboyant verse brought him 
little emolument, and once more the poet resumed a 
more normal manner; from 1615 until his death in 
1627 his grotesque utterances became sporadic, being 
then usually composed only upon adulatory occasions. 

It is important to bear in mind the immense vogue of 
gongorism, even in the face of able and energetic op- 
position. Not only the swiftness of its spread but the 
length of its duration argue that the phenomenon was 
much more than a passing fad. Its great “success” lay 
in the fact that there was something in the culture of 
the age to give it root, and for this reason it is, of 
course, unjust to accuse Gongora of being creator and 
perpetrator of all gongoristic poetry. For many a de- 
cade the seed and shoots of these esthetical tares had 
been sown in the fields of Spanish verse. We have 
noted its luxuriant verbiage in the poetry of Mena and 
Padilla, to say nothing of the many lesser rhymesters 
composing before Gongora. developed his eccentric 
style. 

In addition to the existence of a fantastic manner in 
poetry before Gongora’s time, the occurrence of a 


CONCLUSION 257 


similar style in fields of art entirely without the sphere 
of his influence and even before his day, lends assur- 
ance to the conviction that gongorism is the disease of 
an age and a culture rather than of an individual. 
Surely it is impossible to lay at GOngora’s door the con- 
ceptist music of Victoria, the unrestrained and strident 
sculpture of Berruguete or Juni, the ornate plateresque 
and baroque in architecture, and the erratic painting of 
El Greco. 

Nor are the major arts the only provinces wherein 
the fantastic magnificence of the seventeenth century 
finds expression. The showy sumptuousness of dress 
with its starched ruffs, costly plumes, slashed doublets, 
and brocaded silks and velvets has back of it the same 
spirit so extraordinarily articulate in the poetry of gon- 
gorism. And this extravagant sartorial foppishness 
embraced an inordinate display of jewels and gold, and 
a craze for pomades, cosmetics, and exotic perfumes. 
Strangely in contrast to this efflorescent luxury seems 
the extreme punctiliousness of courtly manners, the 
austere code of the pundonor. Yet here too, in the very 
preciosity and minuteness of the rules governing a 
gentleman’s conduct, can we not see the same over-re- 
fined subtilizing, so ubiquitous in the conceits of gon- 
gorism? 

One of the most noted qualities of gongorism is the 
barrenness of thought embedded at the same time in a 
wealth of exoteric imagery. This is also characteristic 
of Spain in that great age, for in spite of its absolute 


258 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


bankruptcy we find great lords prodigal to the point of 
wantonness. The unrestraint and bombastic magnificence 
of the Spanish Homer’s verse was more than matched 
by the gorgeous lavishness of the exaggerated produc- 
tions of the Buen Retiro. Again, the Trimalconian ban- 
quets of the rich, with their voluptuous foods and the 
tragalism of the orgies too often following are parallels 
to the crapulous tropes of the Soledades. Here the un- 
restraint seems paradoxical in the face of the austerity 
of the religion then so powerful. But after all, was it 
really so austere? Apart from the rigors of the Inqui- 
sition, whose domain was political rather than personal, 
one finds the church too often closing her eyes to sin 
in high places and failing to open them in low. In spite 
of the much advertised mortifications of professional 
mystics, one discovers a strong tendency in the priest- 
hood of the age to condone the sins of the flesh so long 
as the intellect and the pocketbook were at one with 
God. By a complicated higher mathematics of casuistry, 
it was possible to evolve formulae that would solve the 
most lascivious veneries. In such systems one finds 
once more the conceptism of gongoristic poetry, par- 
ticularly in the subtleties of Jesuitism and in the no- 
torious quibblings of the later Escobar. 

The political expansion of Spain with its countless 
wars stimulated unrestraint. and engendered quixotic 
enterprises before which the erratic undertakings of 
poetry pale. The bizarre yet romantic adventures of 
Miguel de Castro or Alonso de Contreras, for example, 


CONCLUSION 259 


surpass the most fantastic verse. And wherever the 
golden, castellated galleons went flaming with the flags 
of Spain ovet the seas of the world, there magnificence 
was unbounded. Wherever the armies of Philip took 
their stand, there was blood and bravery for countless 
melodramas. Even the Invincible Armada, sailing out 
after glory beyond the pillars of Hercules, in a swirl 
of smoke from the booming of a thousand guns, was 
it not also some bizarre hyperbole, some monstrous 
gongoristic figure signifying nothing but stupendous 
emptiness ? 

If all these parallels do not suggest the depth and 
extent of gongorism and thereby relieve the poet Gon- 
gora from the responsibility of the fantastic style, addi- 
tional evidence can be found which will disclose him 
as the victim rather than the abettor of the mad manner. 
We have already observed the occurrence of phases of 
erratic writing in numerous other literatures. In some 
instances, as for example the Icelandic or the Alex- 
andrine Greek, the similarity to gongorism is astonish- 
ing, not only in itself but also in view of the impossi- 
bility of influences upon the Spanish style. 

Had these strange periods happened irregularly, they 
might possibly be attributed to a number of accessory 
causes, always present though more or less obscurely, 
and so be explained away with some show of scholarly 
finality. This, however, is not the case; rather it is ap- 
parent that these deplorable literary seizures come in- 
evitably and at definite times, that is, during or sequent 


260 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


to periods of great artistic expression. At such times 
the bizarre malady is also most pronounced and seems 
clearly to suggest the pessimistic diagnosis that the 
nation is spiritually sick and must presently enter upon 
a long and downward path. 

Yet why should a culture ever become infirm? Has 
it, like life itself, a limited span, a brief destiny which, 
being fulfilled by the climax of a major fruition, ends 
in a period of decay, degeneracy, and gradual falling 
into impotence? Truly, the history of every art seems 
to bear an affirmative answer to this question, and 
although the era of disintegration lasts longer for the 
culture of one people than another, and although in 
this slow dying there may be brief and hopefully revivi- 
fying rallies, the relapse is inevitable, is attended by all 
the ugly garrulity of senile expression together with its 
rambling phantasies, and the end, oblivion, awaits every 
one of its “masterpieces.” The feverish sickness of 
romanticism with its maundering introspections, senti- 
mental droolery, and childish unrestraints has deceived 
many into thinking that a decrepit culture was becom- 
ing young and strong again. The present witnesses a 
reaction from that hectic rally, and the present with 
its spasmodic epilepsies of free verse, jazz, cubism, 
futurism, post impressionism, and various other ultra 
“gongorisms,” would deceive us into believing that 
western art was really in its infancy instead of uttering 
already, and only too plainly, its ugly death rattle. 


CONCLUSION 261 


We of the English tradition may point perhaps to 
the Lake poets as proof that genius still lingers in our 
culture, but we must admit they pale before the Eliza- 
bethans; and no matter how earnestly we might desire 
to place, let us say, Wordsworth’s ode beside Hamlet’s 
soliloquy, it is impossible not to be impressed with the 
lack of power and the creative senescence that our cul- 
ture has suffered in two centuries. However fine the ode 
may be, we cannot but feel that the Intimations of Im- 
mortality may not be immortal, while on the other hand 
the soliloquy on death will never die. Equally odious, 
yet equally true, comparisons might be made between 
the classic writers and the romanticists of Spain, 
Italy, and France (Hugo or Chateaubriand with Racine 
and Moliére) ; but it will not be necessary to prove the 
obvious. We may perfect the technique of art and ex- 
press ourselves more adroitly and cleverly, we may give 
voice to our particular little decade with brilliance, we 
may, in short, deceive ourselves into thinking that we 
are creating great art, and so die in blissful ignorance 
before the next generation can undeceive us, although 
time will eventually prove that we lack the fire of true 
creativeness. There is no philosopher’s stone that can 
perpetuate the life of art, no talisman that will trans- 
mute the dross of later centuries into the gold of genius. 
Whatever the future may have in store for us in com- 
merce, discovery, or science, shall we not remember that 
it is the past which holds the memory of our greatness 
in the arts? And should we ever in an unguarded mo- 


262 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


ment be taken in by the trickeries and blatant manner- 
isms of modern “art,” can we not stop and compare 
them with that sublime memory of bygone days and 
judge their futile eccentricities by the archetypes we 
found in the gongorism of the Golden Age? 


per 


NOTES ON CHAPTERS 


NOTES ON CHAPTER I 


(1) The propitious dawn of gleaming Hesperus F 
That now suffuses the two eclyptics 
Makes the Sandoval crimson which it gilds today. 


(2) Of the pine always placed upon the mountain opposite. 


(3) Where the foamy Sicilian sea 
Plates with silver the foot of Lilybeo. 


(4) The gold that was guarded by the vigilant, terrible dragon 
from tender Alcides. 


(5) Lascivious in respect to the movement 
But honest in respect to the eyes. 


(6) Gives to the sea sweet and tearful complaints of love in 
such wise that, the sea condoling him, his miserable lament 
served to pacify waves and wind, just as if it had been 
uttered by the sweet instrument of Arion. 


(7) Artificially gives exhalation. 
(8) camitio Oh white, prolix moon! 


ISABELA Oh proud Endymion! 
My treasure! 


CAMILIO Seal up your lips. 
~ ISABELA My soul weeps! 
CAMILIO Let it weep a river. 
ISABELA [ shall cry. 
CAMILIO Cry. 
LAURETA Oh abhorrence! 
ISABELA Qh love! 
CAMILIO Oh honor ! 
LAURETA Oh ill-fated star ! 


(9) With death free you from death 
And conquer hell with hell. 


(10) Admiration, clad in cold marble, 
Could hardly arch her eyes; 
Emulation shod in hard ice 
Is rooted heavily. 


[ 263 ] 


264 
(11) 


(12) 


(13) 


(1) 


(2) 
(3 


——) 


(4) 


(5) 


(6) 


GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


Will you, in the year that a plural comet 
Presages unhappy mourning to the crowns, 
Follow the footsteps of the astute Greek? 


The woods, divided into little isles 

And producing that fragrant aroma 

Which, transported with difficulty across Egypt, 

At a late moment the Nile carried it to its mouths, 

And these, still later, on to gluttonous Greece; 

This spikenard is no spike but a spur to the appetite 

So that, as long as Rome delayed in discovering it, 

The tastes of Cato were temperate and Lucretia chaste. 


So then this formidable yawning of the earth, melancholy 
void and terror of that mountain land serves Polyphemus as 
a resting place, a shadowy shelter and spacious fold that 
encloses the shaggy peaks and shuts up a flock of mountains, 
a splendid amplitude that at once conjoins the echo of 
whistling birds and seals up a crag. 


NOTES ON CHAPTER II 


Lady, whose worth so far exceeds the mortal being, any- 
one would give you a wing of the god of love for your 
hand! 


My loves are royal. 


How stylish is Vergel’s new blouse, 

Tricked out with the most precious stones— 
Stones that were given his spouse 

For her interest in other men’s stones. 


I am a gongoristic poet 

A valorous imitator 

Of the style that is not understood 
By the fools of this age. 


And this I deduce from the fact that Géngora said, 
“he was writing in the crimson hours when dawn was rosy 
and the day rose-red”; from which one may conclude that 
he then was eating. 


He said to Peter with a smile, 
“Look here, old man, go slow, 
For in a mighty little while 
Your rooster’s going to crow- 


NOTES ON CHAPTERS 265 


(7) Here, under concrete, lies a captain whole 


(8) 


(9) 


(1) 


Whose rations from the abstract were abstracted. 
The ulcers, pox and chancres he contracted 
Served him for mess kit, bunk, and bedding roll. 
See that his coffin is a kneading bowl, 
Since life for him with breadcrumbs was enacted, 
And have no tolling bells for him impacted— 
What killed him was their dole, dole, dole. 
In short his life on earth was very short 
But long enough to learn what battles mean. 
He moored his cups inside a cupboard’s port 
And from the bark could tell a barkantine, 
And if he wanted coffee, just for sport 
He ground up paper, spice and leaves yet green. 


Most learned brother John, giant of wisdom, 
Marvel and astonishment of Parnassus, 
Second Lope and new Garcilasso, 

Whom Apollo himself holds in reverence. 


France hastened to the tatterdemalion peace, 
They heed neither Osuna nor yet Monteleon; 
Lexington does not intervene for France; 
But the old woman and Ronquillo play a rdle. 

Deceiving with tinsel promises, 

The evacuation does not evacuate the humor of the French; 
France says now “Yes” and now “No” 
Because her nature is rattlebrained. 

Castile does not conquer the Portuguese 
And Catalonia is always obstinate 
In going over to France for her own interest. 

Castile belongs to Philip 
And France turns every thing upside down 
Making greater discord with her peace. 


NOTES ON CHAPTER III 


With this vigilance, earlier, in a dissertation, “Gongorism 
and the Artistic Culture of the Golden Age’, Harvard Uni- 
versity, 1926, the author approached the question of the 
quantity of gongorism in Gongora’s poetry. Confining the 
investigation to the five hundred poems edited by Foulché- 
Delbosc, in the Obras poéticas de D. Luis de Géngora, the 


266 


(2) 


(3) 


(4) 


(5) 


(6) 


(7) 


* 


GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


amount of gongorism was tabulated year by year, poem by 
poem, and even line by line. In this manner it was possible 
to establish definitely not only the total quantity of gon- 
gorism but also the date and rate of its intrusion in the poet’s 
work. The results of all this drudgery were startling in view 
of the opinion prevalent upon the subject. 


Géngora et le gongorisme considerés dans leur rapports 
avec le marinisme (1909), and Lyrisme et préciosité cultistes 
en Espagne (1913). 


When she her temples beautiful engirt 

And round about her flung a flowing skirt 
Which set a boundry to the gold and snow 
Of hair and skin, I swear did never glow 
Her flowery garland like her starry eyes 
That rivalled night with its illumined skies. 


The thicket knows new trunks today and the mountain, 
stones. 


Be witnesses today of these tears 
Which Licius sheds, and of this humble vow J 
That ruddy Phoebus makes on beholding Clotus 
Breaking the thread of life of his Cloris. 


What ivory from the Ganges, or what white Parian marble, 
What gleaming ebony, 
What ruddy amber or what excellent gold, 
What fine silver or what crystal so clear, 
What pearl like drop of dew, 
What precious oriental sapphire, what burning ruby 
Or what cunning hand of an exceptional sculptor 
In this present happy time, ... ? 


The planking of the vessel torn apart, 
Pious yet cruel sign of wreckage 
Of the holy temple with its tattered curtains 
Caused these hangings to be set on the walls. 
Having pardoned the injuries of the weather 
And the violence of the stormy stars of Orion, 
I assemble the scattered flocks 
On the expansive banks of the Betis. 
I shall again be a shepherd, since a mariner 
God will not have me be, for with his darts he urges on 
The winds of the south and the waters of the ocean; 


(8) 


(9) 


(10) 


(11) 


(12) 


(13) 


(1) 


NOTES ON CHAPTERS 267 


Making, to the melancholy though savage sound 
Of that bitch, now wild mistress, 
A yearning to the wild beasts and to the cruel rocks, 


A messenger was the archer 
For he was a messenger. 


Hellish glories 
Glorious hells. 


This bitch’s name is tuberose— 
Get down and prove it with your nose. 


Most plants through petals render scent 
But this one sends it through a rent. 


Crusados bring crusaders, 

From nobles, nobles spring 

As well as threadbare traders. 

Where dukes be, duckats ring 

And marks be marquis’ aiders 

While crowns will make a king, 
Forsooth. 


Yesterday a human deity, today a bit of dust; 
Yesterday an altar, today a tomb, Oh mortals! 
Plumes, though they be eagle plumes, 

Are still plumes, who does not know this errs much. 

The bones that this sepulchre encloses today, 

Would, were they not embalmed in oriental spices, 
Give ample proof of corruption to mortals; 
Let reason make clear what this marble hides. 

The Phoenix, that had Lerma yesterday for her Arabia 
Is now a maggot in worm’s meat, 

And serves as a warning to persons of understanding. 

If the ocean can engulf a whale 
What shall it avail a boat to have lights in the cabin? 
Dust unto dust, for thus all beings must. 


NOTES ON CHAPTER IV 


While continuing caring for myself may I well take care 
That I should not care at all for this caring 
For being so cared I might kill myself from caring 
And therefore I care to take care in this; 
If there were some one that would care for me 


268 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


He would care for that which I did not care to care for 
With such care that he would free me 
From my great care in caring still. 


(2) Eve, the mother of Abel turned into a bird. 
(3) Turning myself to the modern crowd. 

(4) Married ones devouring ashes. 

(5) Ido not know who can speak it. 


(6) When I saw my life dying 
And life given to my sins 
Whose life is extinguished 
From one who was unknown 
To my unequal afflictions 
Then I well considered 
I thought that my thought so strong 
Would not have besides 
That which would torment me 
About death. 


(7) After the painter of the world 
Designed our vain life, 
The three faces of Diana 
Expressed joyful countenances. 

And he shed light upon the cradles 
Where Jupiter engendered 
That son of Latona 
In the niche of the zone 
That girdles all the globe. 

Of the one whose deeds and enjoyments 
Partook of the nature of a bull 
Of the copious treasure 
Of the mane with hairs of gold 
Where Phoebus then lived. 

At that time I found myself 
In a wild forest 
Of Thessalian trees 
And unknown to men 
I was walking. 


(8) Through the flaming twelfth abode, 
Towards the part of the brilliant Eurus 
We saw the great, hairy butcher 
Going up diligently by steps and degrees: 


(9) 


(10) 


(11) 


(12) 


(13) 


NOTES ON CHAPTERS 269 


In the middle, keeping to the ascent, 

Was shining Phoebus, fiercely burning 
Shedding its light through the starry heaven, 
Striking very suddenly 

His center no less perfect than passed. ~ 


At the time when the blazing, 
Very radial Apollo 

Entered upon the first step 
Where the golden fleece arose 
In the equinox: 

Having passed the last port 
Of the Hesperic nation 

Its mundane machine, 
Through the occidental course 
Equitating on the Phlegethon. 


Justina’s brothers laid upon her their 

Hands, tongues and after this an order: 

The judge commanded her to pay the notary’s costs; 
Baths, judges, (she says) I shall appeal to the chief 
Before whom I shall call the jousts of Guevara, 
Cake of butter and breast of diamond. 


I am much of a poet who has drunk from the secret spring, 
Even I who at one time grazed on the mount of parnassus, 
I am weary with struggles to surpass swords: 

And now I will neither give vent to blows nor slaps. 


Like a swan that with its last breath 
Lives and dies singing the same thing, 
And conjoining the sepulchre and nest 
Articulates its accents more vividly: 

Equally upon his hard bed, upon a slow fire 
The unconquerable Spaniard, living and dead, 
Uttered this divine harmony 
While surrounded by tyrants and torments. 


There breaks the darkness of a gloomy cave 
A monster covered with brownish snakes, 

And between the bloody points of halberds 
It tries to kill while killing furiously. 

But out of the dark and fearsome sepulture, 
Raging, there rush out roaring attendant furies, 
Bastard daughters of Pluto and the night 
Who snatch at life and madness. 


270 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


From this monster springs three giants, 
And from these three giants, Doralice, 
And from this Doralice is born one Bendo. 
Thou, oh beholder, who looketh upon this, be not afraid 
If you understand it not; for although I did it 
May I thus be assisted because I do not understand it. 


(14) If her forehead was not snow, 

It was a sky above two arches, 
Which, to the rain of my eyes, 
Predicted fair weather. 

In whose shadow were seen 
Two beautiful and azure suns, 
Sapphires and precious stones 
From these that weep portraits; 

Although from them chaste love 
Then made two reprints 
That served me for mirrors 
They were false glasses. 


(15) Divine Ceres, Celestial Mary, 
Goddess of the wheat God sowed in your breast, 
It was God’s finger that worked up your pasture. 
The wheat, ground between the millstones of the cross, 
Formed that bread of nectar and ambrosia, 
That went down from God to a God at His command. 


NOTES ON CHAPTER V 


(1) Oh leave me love, full many a precious day 
Is wasted that upon thy worth I set, 
While all I have of thee is this, regret, 
The only thing thou canst not take away. 
Mine eyes, what use have I for them I say, 
Have not their very tears engulfed them yet? 
Yea, every sense of mine that thou couldst get 
Is doubly sick and sore from thy foul play. 
Come, leave my bosom, love, ere I be spent 
And breathe forever out this burning wind. 
Canst thou look in my heart and find it pent 
And yet no pity for its anguish find? 
That cannot be, I know thou wouldst relent 
If thou wouldst see me, love,—but thou art blind. 


NOTES ON CHAPTERS 271 


(2) While striving to outshine your crown of hair 


(3) 


(4) 


(5) 


(6) 


The sun’s resplendant burnished gold must bow, 
While with surpassing scorn your snowy brow 
Outdoes the prairie with its lilies fair, . 
While for your lips more eyes with yearning stare 
Than look upon the first carnations now, 
While with a fine disdain your neck I trow 
Casts in the shade the shining crystal rare; 
Let neck, brow, hair and lips rejoice this hour 
Because your golden age could thus transmute 
The crystal, lily, gold, carnation flower, 
As well as silver or the violet mute, 
So even you, with all your magic power, 
To shadows, air and earth must fall the loot. 


I write and asking beseech you to answer with such 
manifestations of your eloquence, wit and excellency, the 
things I write of Spain; comparing peoples, nations and 
provinces, the which I make clear by uttering excellent 
letters in Latin and Spanish. 


The subject cold and dure, , 

The manner so obscure, 
No dame though wise and fine 
Can possibly divine 

If she’s made vile or pure. 


A subtle metaphor when there is need 
I grant is pleasing if it’s rarely used, 
But there’s no merit when the right’s abused. 
To say of dawn, “’Twas at the time, indeed, 
The Phoebic knight who dwells beyond the waves 
Pricked o’er the peaks his pareoric steed ;” 
Or speak of summer thus, “Aurora braves 
A sojourn in her pristine domicile, 
And Phoebus, cornute Taurus gilds the while ;” 
These are perchance not wholly to be damned 
But anything that’s worse might well be slammed, 
At least that is my somewhat callow creed. 
Go, pen a sonnet that shall wing its flight 
Above the unattained Caucasian crags, 
In hyperflorid style that never lags 
Though crammed with attic lore and learning tight. 
Speak not of snow, such clearness is not right 
When words like “pearls” and “ambar” come in bags; 
Be never clear, for clearness always drags 
And bigger fools will claim your darkness light. 


272 GONGORISM AND THE GOLDEN AGE 


NOTES ON CHAPTER VI 


(1) Within a short while the bitter season and the wind, 
whistling, agitate the branches, all of which, already take 
on varied hues from the enfolding of the leaves within the 
branches; and since a bird there neither sings nor chirps 
Love teaches me to compose such a song that shall neither 
be a second or third but the first for dissolving a hard heart. 

Love is the key to worth and the reservoir of prowess, 
wherefrom all good fruit is engendered, if it be faithfully 
cultivated. One should not take from it snow or ice while 
it is maturing within its good trunk but one should pull off 
the vile and the perfidious so that the good may obtain it. 


(2) Rome will become a love to you because of these dis- 
turbances. 


(3) To distinguish well the tricks and feints of a stag, 
The course, the run, the break and the beat, 
Its grazing ground, couch, range and wallow, 
And take the chase well and hold the cue well; 
And as if he were born from one of the nymphs of the wood 
To size up the stance and the head of an old buck, 
Its bur, branches and grain, 
Its big buds, points and beam, 
Its tines, its bosset, strong and well sprung, 
Its fine span and its crown, 
He knew how to call off and talk to the hounds, 
He marked the blazes well and was the first 
To know the print, the bite and the spoor, 
The buns, the leash and the rut grass, and knew 
Without seeing the stag what sort of branch he wore 
After having seen only the tracks showing his prints and 
gait. 


(4) And Jupiter himself who lets loose the storm 
Entered the lodge of Bauce and Philemon. 


(5) ’Twas in that season when the heavenly hound 
While barking breathes out flame, when boils the air, 
When still or raging, e’er he circles round 
*Mid flower and field and peak and country fair: 
Then in the woodland caves the shepherd found 
A resting place with springs and shadows there, 
Where scathless he might dwell while Phoebus broils 
The wild beast’s back that was Alcides’ spoils. 


INDEX 


Alderete, Bernardo, 108 

Alexandrinism, 144 

Alvernhe, Peire, 136, 163 

Anderson, Rasmus, 130-131 

’Antara, 134 

Arabic affectations, 134-136 

Architecture, baroque, 201-202; 
Gothic, 192-194; plateresque, 
196-197 ; Romanesque, 191-192 

Arezzo, Guittone, 158 

Aurenga, Rambaut, 136 


Baroque (see architecture) ; 
sculpture, 213-216 

Basset, René, 134 

Belenoi, Aimeric, 136, 154 

Bélre filed, 132, 164 

Bembo, Pietro, 159 

Bermudo, Juan, 172-176, 180 

Berruguete, Alonso, 216-222, 223, 
225, 23eee0/ 

Biscargui, 174 

Boethius, 174 


Cabeen, C. W., 156 

Cahide, Francisco, 113 

Casa, Giovanni, 159 

Carmina figurata, 139, 170 

Carrillo y Sotomayor, 
102-105, 112-113 

Cascales, Francisco, 47, 64, 65 

Castro, Adolfo, 71, 99-100 

Cespedes y Meneses, Gonzalo, 
59, 61 

Cejador y Frauca, Julio, 27, 52, 
70, 93, 101, 138 

Chartier, Alain, 156 

Cicero, 172 

Ciminelli, 159 

Concepcion, Juan, 56 


Luis, 


Coronel, Garcia Salcedo, 51, 
145 

Costanza, Angelo, 159 

Coster, Adolphe, 110-111 

Crashawe, Richard, 150-151 


Daniel, Arnaut, 136-137, 154, 
158 

Deif, Ahmed, 134 

Delrio, Martin, 177 


E1 Greco, 236-253 
Espinosa, Pedro, 94, 95 
Euphuism, 147-152 


F euillerat, Albert, 147 

Figueroa, Cristébal Suarez, 47 

Fitzmaurice-Kelly, James, 27, 
29, 56, 62, 68, 86, 123 

Fonseca, Cristobal, 113 

Frederick II of Sicily, 157 

Frexenal, Vasco Diaz, 59, 90- 
91, 197 


Gavaudan, 163 

Gothic (see architecture) 
Goya, Francisco, 253-254 
Grands rhetoriquers, 156 
Guevara, Antonio, 152 


Harsdérfer, 147 

Harvey, Gabriel, 150, 159 

Hauvette, Henri, 156 

Herrera, Fernando, 99-102, 109- 
112 

Hoffmannswaldau, Christian, 
147 


I gnaure, 163 
Imr-oul-Qais, 135 
Isidore of Seville, 173 


best 


274 


Jauregui y Aguilar, 46-47, 114 
Jorge, Ricardo, 238-239 


Kiai, 147 
Khalifat, 134 


Lanson, Gustave, 156 
Leon y Mansilla, José, 53, 202, 
226 


Lobo, Gerardo, 55-56, 202 
Lorente, Andrés, 175, 180 
Lucan, 117, 138-142 

Luna, Joe Fernandez, 207 
Lycophron, 144-146 

Lyly, John, 147-149, 154 


Manuel, Esteban, 48 

Manuel, John, 112 

- Marcabrun, 136, 163 

Marini, Giambattista, 156-157 

Marinism, 157-162 

Melida, 239-240 

Mena, Juan, 86, 87-89, 91, 92, 
99, 105, 112, 117, 156, 195 

Mengs, Raphael, 253 

mies y Pelayo, Marcelino, 
19 

Moallaquat, 135 

Moncayo y Guerra, Juan, 51 

Montafiés, 224 

Morales, Luis, 232-235 

Music, modal concepts in, 171- 
173, 175-176, 180-181; nota- 
tional concepts in, 176-177, 
183-184. 

Mutanabbi, 135 


Navarrete y Rivera, Francisco, 
60 

Nebrija, Elio Antonio, 113 

Northup, G.T., 103 


Ormstunga, Gunlaug, 131-132 


INDEX 


Orti y Lara, 110 
Ovid, 142 


Padilla, Juan, 89-90, 197 
Palestrina, 179 

Paravicino, 28, 43-44, 46, 57, 60 
Pellicer y Salas, 143 

Pérez, 149 

Petrarch, 158 

Philip II, 199-201 

Plateresque (see architecture) 
Plato, 172 

Pliny, 148 

Preciosity, 154-156 

Puyol y Alonso, Julio, 91 


Quevedo, Francisco, 48-50, 66, | 
114 


Rambouillet, 152, 154, 156 
Retables, 209-210 

Riana, Diego, 197 

Ribera, Anastasio Pantaledn, 50 
Rios, Amador, 138 

Roelas, Juan, 19 

Rojas, Augustin, 93-94 

Rojas, Fernando, 197 
Romanesque (see architecture) 
Ronsard, Pierre, 66, 152-154 
Ronsardism, 152-154 

Rota, Bernardino, 159 

Roxas, Gabriel Fernando, 52 
Ruiz, Salcedo, 66, 193 


Saavedra y Castillo, Antonio, 
253 

Salazar y Hontiverso, 
José, 54 


Juan 


Salazar y Torres, Augustin, 52 


Sampere y Miguel, 238 

Sanchez, Juan, 197 

Sannazaro, 158 

Santiago, Francisco Hernando, 
113 


INDEX 


Scaldic poetry, 129-132 
Serna, Ambrosio, 50 
Shakespeare, 150 

Silver age, Latin, 138-143 
Silvestre, Gregorio, 114-115 
Skelton, John, 149, 151 
Soto, Luis Barahona, 115 
Suffi, 165 


Tapia, Martin, 177 

Tassis, Juan, 44-46, 50, 51, 53 

Tatharya, Ibn, 135 

Tebaldeo, 159 

Tha’alibi, 135 

Thomas, L-P., 71-74, 101-102, 
106-110, 112, 117-118, 123-124, 
126 

Ticknor, George, 27, 51, 59, 118 

Tiraboschi, 117 

Toledo, Alfonso Martinez, 194 

Tolomei, 159 


ZFS 


Tolosa, Raimon, 136 

Tomé, Narciso, 211 

Torre, Francisco, 51 

Trissino, 159 

Trobar clus, 136-138, 158, 164, 


Valera, Juan, 118 

Vega, Francisco Pedro, 113 

Vega, Garcilasso, 99, 105, 109 

Vega, Lope, 95-97 

Velasquez, 251-252 

Victoria, Tomas Ludovica, 179- 
186, 257 

Villabrille, Alonso, 227 

Villasandino, Alfonso, 65, 86, 
91 

Vifiaza, Cipriano, 107 

Vizina, Martin, 114 

Voiture, Vincent, 154, 156 


Zurbaran, Francisco, 251, 253 


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